Legacy X

Over at Language Log Roger Shuy has a post (comments not allowed) which begins:

Daniel Gross has a nice article in Slate called “Bubblespeak,” describing the way economists and politicians extend themselves, as Orwell put it, “to make lies sound truthful." Leading the list is “legacy loans,” “legacy securities,” and “legacy costs,” referring to those badly collateralized loans, mortgages, and problems of auto companies that we are hearing so much about in reports of the recent Federal Bank Rescue Plan. Linguist George Lakoff says “legacy” typically means something positive, while positive these financial instruments are not.

All I can say is, legacy used this way - as a noun modifier, not as a standalone - doesn't have a positive connotation to me.

"My diamond ring is a legacy from my mother" - yes; that's a positive thing. But I would never call it "a legacy diamond ring". An "heirloom ring", but not a "legacy one".

More to the point, perhaps, at work, every time someone refers to a "legacy system" or a "legacy database", it always means "old piece of junk we have to get rid of". Mind, the term gets applied to plenty of things that work much better than their sexy new replacments, but "legacy X" isn't positive, whatever Lakoff may say.