{"id":3095,"date":"2015-07-10T10:00:48","date_gmt":"2015-07-10T16:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/?p=3095"},"modified":"2015-07-11T10:02:13","modified_gmt":"2015-07-11T16:02:13","slug":"shambooze-a-new-word-for-an-old-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/shambooze-a-new-word-for-an-old-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Shambooze: A New Word for an Old Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the startling news broke that a TABC investigation revealed that nearly a third<\/em> of Texas bars were selling bottom shelf booze as the good stuff, the first thing I noticed after absorbing the leading\u00a0two\u00a0articles was this: there is no good word\u00a0that suitably describes this ancient treachery.<\/em><\/p>\n

The phrases phony pours <\/em>and\u00a0counterfeit liquor<\/em>\u00a0were served up\u00a0in the Dallas News article<\/a>, but the former isn’t specific enough and the latter is likely to\u00a0be confused\u00a0with\u00a0the made-in-a-basement-by-the-local-version-of-the-Mafia counterfeit hooch\u00a0that regularly poisons drinkers in Europe and Asia.<\/p>\n

Which isn’t what’s going on here. What’s happening in Texas–and undoubtedly every other state in the union–is bar owners or their minions\u00a0are pouring cheap liquor into top- or even mid-shelf bottles and selling it as such. In the industry this is called marrying<\/em> the bottles, but the problem with that word is it also applies to pouring the exact same liquor from one bottle to a matching bottle. Which is also illegal, but for a different reasons.<\/p>\n

The KSAT article<\/a>, on the other hand,\u00a0rolled out\u00a0substituted liquor<\/em>, but that certainly doesn’t ring. I sense a definite vacuum, which is why I am shoving the pleasant portmanteau\u00a0shambooze<\/em>\u00a0into the linguistic arena as the definitive new word to describe the deceptive practice of selling cheaper liquor as something better.<\/p>\n

Examples of use:<\/p>\n

“This shot tastes like shambooze!”<\/p>\n

“Why, I suspect this bar of engaging in shamboozery.”<\/p>\n

“Yes, I’m pretty sure this goddamn bar just shamboozed<\/del>\u00a0shamboozled me.”<\/p>\n

“Suh, your flagrant shamboozin’ has stricken a dire blow against the name and reputation of the great state of Texas.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Update:<\/strong> It’s been brought to my attention that shamboozled<\/em>\u00a0(as evidenced\u00a0by its etymological predecessor bamboozled<\/em>) rings more truly than shamboozed<\/em>, and I couldn’t agree more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the startling news broke that a TABC investigation revealed that nearly a third of Texas bars were selling bottom shelf booze as the good stuff, the first thing I noticed after absorbing the leading\u00a0two\u00a0articles was this: there is no good word\u00a0that suitably describes this ancient treachery. The phrases phony pours and\u00a0counterfeit liquor\u00a0were served up\u00a0in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[871,429,118,872],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3095"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}