Enroned

Sometimes, when a company gets "verbed," it's a good thing. "Googling" something is good...the people at Google should be proud of becoming that verb. "Xeroxing" is good branding...another proud addition to the general lexicon.

Other times, though, becoming a verb is much, much worse. Just ask Enron.

In 2001, energy trading firm Enron became the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history (up to that time). The company had been brought down by massive accounting fraud perpetrated by a small group of senior company executives. A bunch of them eventually ended up in jail.

Enron's collapse wiped out over $60 billion in value, leaving more than 20,000 employees in the lurch. Also, because of aggressive internal marketing by the company, which encouraged workers to invest their retirement in company stock (a program that eventually became the basis of a massive lawsuit), 62% of the employees' 401(k)s were in Enron stock...which became essentially worthless after the scandal unfolded.

Now to the verbing of Enron. To get Enroned is to be one of the 20,000 or so employees who got screwed by the double-dealing of the Enron executives. Through no fault of their own, they lost jobs and retirement savings. So yeah...that's getting Enroned.