Eggcorn Forum

Makes sense to me.
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We’re dealing with two constructions here: one “fob person off (with X)” and the other “fob X off (on person)”. At least prototypically for me the two have somewhat different meanings.
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(1) If somebody successfully fobs me off, he manages to (somewhat deceitfully) avoid giving me what I want or need. Getting me distracted or confused about what had been a clear objective of mine is likely to be a large part of the preferred procedure. (Moving the realization of my objective further into the future with insincere promises will also be important, and probably is a good part of what off means in this context.) Fogging people off with crap, as in one of Peter’s posts, is presumably a close cousin of the time-honored tactic of baffling them with bullshit.
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But (2) if somebody fobs something or somebody off onto me, he’s inducing me, by whatever means, to accept something less than ideal. Often I’m aware that this is less than ideal, but for whatever reason I am impotent or unwilling to fight for what I wanted. I’m more likely to be made resentful than foggily confused about the situation. In this case the “smudged and smeary lack of clarity” is not “demanded” and in fact is likely not to obtain. So fogging it off on me doesn’t work as well here.
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Still, it’s only as I’m aware that something inferior was fobbed off on me that I am resentful, so maybe, in situations where I remain muddled in blissless ignorance the fog might creep in again. Be interesting if any examples come up …
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I’m noting, however, that (3) the usage Peter first heard seems a bit of a hybrid between these. “A supplier had tried to ‘fog’ him off with inferior materials.” As in usage (1) above, this is a case of “fob person off with X”; the expressed object of the fobbing is the person, not the ersatz goods. Yet the meaning is not, as in case (1) “avoid/postpone giving a person what they have asked for/need”. Rather it is like (2): give the person inferior goods in place of good ones. Is the presence of the verb “try” important here —the only way the intended victim would have accepted the bad stuff would have been if he were duped/fogged/confused into it—? So maybe the perp was trying for muddled blissless ignorance (justifying the use of “fog”) on the part of his mark, but failed to achieve it?

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2009-04-13 15:07:06)

Chad, I’d forgotten that what I’d call a weskit or waistcoat is (I think) called a vest in the US. A vest over here is an undergarment for the upper body which has no pockets for watches or anything else. I’m surprised but delighted that MW lists ‘weskit’, dating it to 1849. Now I find myself wondering whether, like the UK, there is a convention in the US which forbids fastening the bottom button of the vest/weskit?

Is fob off pretty much UK English? I know we have a similar expression here in the US but it seems that a different word is used instead of fob… but I’m drawing a blank as to what it is.