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#1 2009-04-13 13:33:10

Peter Forster
Eggcornista
From: UK
Registered: 2006-09-06
Posts: 1222

'fog' for 'fob'

A day or two ago a friend complained that a supplier had tried to ‘fog’ him off with inferior materials. ‘Fob’ rarely occurs without ‘off’, and when it does we’re into hunter, chain, and weskit territory, which is pretty unfamiliar ground these days. So ‘fog’ seems a nicely eggcornish substitute for ‘fob’ as it has the essential smudged and smeary lack of clarity that fobbing demands:

Stop focusing on the eldest child and ure husband. Include him ok and then listen to him and let us all know what he wants to say. Dont fog him off again. ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XofPfkSFJts

... a new account and the fuckers spelt her last name completely wrong and refused to re-do the account in her real name and tried to fog her off with some.
teakdoor.com/127230-post6.html – 9k – Cached

... I have not been bothered to connect apple because they will just try and fog me off with crap, i’m starting to think its leopard now i only hope they …
discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1464518&tstart=2 – 203k – Cached

Every time I raise a enquiry ticket they fogged me off and then deleted all comments and evertime I raised a new ticket they deleted them …
forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=447022 – 171k – Cached

When we asked what had happened they fogged us off with bullshit and didnt even give us a proper explaination.Soo fkn angry and upset for our baby we …
boards.cannabis.com/955120-post1.html – 18k – Cached

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#2 2009-04-13 14:09:10

nilep
Eggcornista
Registered: 2007-03-21
Posts: 291

Re: 'fog' for 'fob'

Peter is quite right: both fobs, the noun and the verb, have largely passed from contemporary usage. (By the way: weskit?) Only fob off remains, and it is rare enough to make eggcorning likely.

I’m struck that all of these examples has fog (him/her/me/us) off, with no examples of fob X off on Y. Meriam Webster’s 10th Collegiate does list “to put off with a trick, excuse, or inferior substitute” as it’s first definition, but the examples in the Corpus of Contemporary American English run slightly in favor of MW’s second sense: “to pass or offer something spurious as genuine.” Specifically, there are five fob X off on Y versus four fob Y off.

hasn’t resulted in more patients. I no longer have a nurse to fob them off on.

the overly sweet, cherry-red pre-mix variants that lesser establishments fob off on their customers.

She might perhaps fob off her mother and twin sister with some tale, but

People are asking is Donald Trump cheap or what? He’s trying to fob Ivana off with a cheesy $ 25 million or so

Note, too, that the latter two examples have an explicit with phrase, which is lacking in Peter’s fog off examples. [EDIT: Oh no, I see that I was too hasty: several of those examples do have with phrases.]

By the way, Ken Lakritz did contribute watch fop back in the Contribute! days.
http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/contribute … mment-4168

Last edited by nilep (2009-04-13 14:12:31)

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#3 2009-04-13 14:42:56

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: 'fog' for 'fob'

Makes sense to me.
.
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.
.
(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.
.
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.
.
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 …
.
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)


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
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#4 2009-04-14 10:37:54

nilep
Eggcornista
Registered: 2007-03-21
Posts: 291

Re: 'fog' for 'fob'

I’ll buy that analysis: the fob person off (with goods) variant is much more amenable to the fog reshaping than the fob goods off (on person) variant is, for the reasons that David describes.

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#5 2009-04-14 11:39:10

Peter Forster
Eggcornista
From: UK
Registered: 2006-09-06
Posts: 1222

Re: 'fog' for 'fob'

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?

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#6 2009-04-15 14:43:35

nilep
Eggcornista
Registered: 2007-03-21
Posts: 291

Re: 'fog' for 'fob'

Yes, I knew the waistcoat/vest variation, but I had to check MW for weskit.

And yes, I was told never to fasten the bottom button of whatever it is called.

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#7 2009-04-17 13:09:01

Craig C Clarke
Eggcornista
Registered: 2005-11-18
Posts: 233
Website

Re: 'fog' for 'fob'

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.

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