Last week the stock market went down. This week it went back up. You and I may not understand why, but financial experts do. The market, they explain, works just like a bubble, a beating, a yo-yo, a fever, a road, an ocean, or whatever other metaphor appears to make sense that day. These analogies vary from analyst to analyst and from day to day, since each analogy favors a particular investment theory and accounts for only part of what's going on. If you're not a professional stock market analyst, here's a glossary of metaphors that will help you play one on TV.

1. Blizzard. Many analysts wonder whether the market will "weather the storm." Others say it's not just a storm, it's a "blizzard." If we're not careful, the blizzard will "snowball" and perhaps, according to the New York Times, "touch off waves of selling in Asia's smaller markets," causing a "landslide." How would our blizzard make waves leading to landslides in Asia? The Times doesn't say. But a CNBC analyst suggests that the blizzard's "snowballing" would be caused by investors "bailing out." Others prefer to analyze the latest sell-off as a nuclear accident or explosion. The Times worries about its "shock waves" and "fallout" abroad. A CNBC anchor expresses relief that a "Monday meltdown" was averted because a "big downdraft in stocks failed to materialize." Had that downdraft materialized, God knows what would have happened.

2. Bubble. To a child, bubbles are harmless. But to a financial expert, they are terrifying. The Nasdaq's growth since last fall "looked like most of history's other great bubbles, all of which ended in terrible carnage," warns the Los Angeles Times. "Bubbles, as they burst, have a way of causing damage far beyond their own shadows." The Washington Post, on the other hand, sees hope in the bubble's explosion: "For the economy as a whole, the air escaping from the stock market bubble could prove to be a cooling breeze that tempers a red-hot consumer spending spree."

3. Gravity. Many tech stocks have been "high fliers" and now face the inevitable "return to earth." A newsletter publisher explains to the Post that investors found themselves "high up in the sky and they began to look down and say, 'Whoaaa!' It gets to a point to where ... maybe, like the Wizard of Oz, somebody draws the curtain." Another money manager cautions investors not to buy stocks just yet, because "an elevator dropping from the 100^th floor to the 50^th floor is not the bargain basement."

4. Bounce. Optimistic advisers urge you not to worry about gravity. They say you should buy because the market will "bounce" upward again. "You want to buy across sectors to make sure you participate in the rebound," a financial planner tells the Wall Street Journal. Once the market has bounced, however, optimists don't want to continue the metaphor, since it implies that gravity will negate the bounce. So they resort to animate metaphors instead. "Many more times than not, what you get is a bounce, and then another pullback," says one strategist.

5. Floor. What does a falling market bounce off of? Why, a floor, of course. And what does this floor consist of? A "trend line." According to an analyst interviewed on CNBC, Monday's rise in stock prices is "an initial bounce off of an extraordinarily compressed, oversold condition. The Nasdaq happens to have bounced right off the trend line from the 1998 lows." The only question is where exactly the floor is. "It used to be that someone was bold enough to jump in and buy. But lately, there has been so much uncertainty about where the floor is," frets one broker. A CNBC pundit counsels skepticism: "Some of the blue-chip tech stocks like Intel [are] helping to put a floor under the Nasdaq. We'll see whether the floor is a real floor or a false floor."

6. Support level. Investors too ignorant to see the floor need to be taught to look for it at the "support level." And what, exactly, is a support level? According to a Barron's writer, "That essentially means it's at a level now where buying has come in before [and] acted as a support point." And where is that point? "It's actually been kind of sticky," says the writer. "So maybe [the market] won't go too much further below this."

7. Bottom. Anyone who still doesn't understand where the "support level" is can find it at the "bottom." The "bottom" is the place where, in retrospect, the market stopped falling. Throughout the latest market slide, TV anchors, fund managers, and commentators have been desperately trying to "find a bottom." "Was that a bottom on Friday?" a CNBC anchor asks one strategist. Even if a bottom is found, it may be too low. A strategist interviewed by the Journal worries that the Nasdaq might "find a bottom somewhere between 2900 to 3000." He counsels his clients to "avoid the temptation of being a hero here and picking the bottom."

8. Traction. In case the market doesn't find a bottom, optimists hope it will at least find "traction." The Nasdaq is "trying with its fingernails to hold on into positive territory," says a CNBC anchor. The Los Angeles Times points out hopefully that Friday, the Dow "clawed about 100 points higher by the close."

9. Rest stop. Pessimists worry that if the traction doesn't hold, it will turn out to be just a "rest stop." Whether the Nasdaq's "modest moves" upward signify traction or "simply a rest stop before a trip to lower levels" is "anybody's guess," warns one commentator.