THE WORD IS SPREADING : Snake oil salesman

 

 

Snake oil salesman

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Snake oil is a term used to describe deceptive marketing, health care fraud, or a scam.  
• Similarly, snake oil salesman is a common label used to describe someone who sells, promotes, or is a general proponent of some valueless or fraudulent cure, remedy, or solution.[1] 
• The term comes from the "snake oil" that used to be sold as a cure-all elixir for many kinds of physiological problems.

The term snake oil has since been established in popular culture as a reference to any worthless concoction sold as medicine, and has been extended to describe a wide-ranging degree of fraudulent goods, services, ideas, and activities such as worthless rhetoric in politics. 

By further extension, a snake oil salesman is commonly used in English to describe a quack, huckster, or charlatan.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.