The word "crash" is so linked to the market's 1929 plunge and the images of bread lines, shantytowns and hungry children in the ensuing Great Depression that some investors hesitate to use it even to describe 1929.

Seth Glickenhaus, a 94-year-old money manager who worked on Wall Street in 1929, used the euphemism "break" to describe the 1929 crash in a recent interview with the Journal.

At CNBC, anchor Maria Bartiromo asked a guest Thursday, "I'm reluctant to use the word, but do you think this is a crash?"

Her guest, Bob Doll, chief investment officer of BlackRock Inc., the largest publicly traded U.S. money manager, replied: "Yeah, I guess we have to call it that, Maria. That's a lot of percents in a short period of time. We're down a bunch, and it's been relentless."

Jonathan Wald, senior vice president for business news at CNBC, said Friday, "Anytime you do the math, when the Dow is down that much over a period of days, it's a crash. It's a word we don't like to use very often because nobody likes to see it, but when it happens, you can't avoid it."

On the morning after Black Monday in 1987, the Journal shocked many readers when it boldly used the word. Its lead article began: "The stock market crashed today."

A Journal spokesman did not immediately return calls Friday.

On Friday, the Dow lost 138 points, ending its worst week ever in both point and percentage terms. It has now lost just under 2,400 points over the last eight trading days, its longest losing streak since the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The index began October at 10,850 and ended this week at 8,451.