There's that word again - 'unprecedented'

On Friday, Countrywide shuttered its Alt-A loan origination center and today it was Capitol One (NYSE:COF) doing the same. About 1,900 Capitol One employees where told where to pick up cardboard boxes and what time to meet for the "de-orientation" meetings.

Do they do those in the mortgage business?

They were all the rage back in 2001 and 2002 after the internet bubble burst

The Associated Press reports on the unprecedented use of the word "unprecedented", in the ongoing mortgage lending mess that just doesn't seem to want to get any less messy.

Capital One said it will shut down GreenPoint Mortgage and eliminate most of the jobs by the end of year. The company will "cease residential mortgage origination" effective immediately and close GreenPoint's Novato, Calif., headquarters and 31 locations in 19 states.

The company said it will honor commitments to customers with locked rates who have loans already in the pipeline.

"Over the past few months, we have experienced an unprecedented disruption in the secondary mortgage markets," Capital One Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Richard D. Fairbank wrote in an internal memo to employees. "I made the decision to wind down the business with a heavy heart."

GreenPoint specializes in no-documentation and Alt-A mortgage loans for borrowers with slightly better credit than subprime borrowers. In his memo, Fairbank said that market has seen a "significant reduction in liquidity and continuing volatility."

The Wall Street Journal also reported($) on the layoffs, noting a slight variation on the usage of the word.

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Richard D. Fairbank said in an internal memo Monday to employees that the decision was "the function of an unprecedented set of market circumstances."

Each day this looks more and more like the bursting of the tech bubble - a Pets.com sock puppet showed up on CNBC today when they were talking about this latest layoff.

Full Disclosure: No position in Capitol One at time of writing.