{"id":22033,"date":"2022-03-11T14:50:26","date_gmt":"2022-03-11T14:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=22033"},"modified":"2022-03-11T14:50:27","modified_gmt":"2022-03-11T14:50:27","slug":"charlatan-snake-oil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=22033","title":{"rendered":"Charlatan Snake Oil"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The term <strong>snake oil<\/strong> is used to refer to a scam, a fraudulent medicine or remedy, or deceptive marketing. It was first appeared in writing in 1858 in the USA. In Georgia, for example, snake oil was sold as a folk remedy for rheumatism and gout, and it was said to be a cure for deafness in parts of Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/jagrap\/5681679855\/in\/photolist-9E56tv-6ZqLq5-23FLCmQ-8c5Kpj-2m5wYUK-5VwEER-2n7e73n-221Aauw-c21Wmj-5dW3zc-TTsp4j-221Abtf-n1xo5W-PUXK9W-2k3ZdVa-6XP8rM-2iL1Qxy-2m5Jwq3-221Aa6L-59cXPB-2m5Np5m-bBwtu8-6xexn-EQko4n-2m5xYiV-2gQ7xdE-Nh6Q12-2m5xYHC-2m5Kw5t-2m5PVbC-oxTuk5-PWKNNG-221AaZj-JsUQJp-2bWrJWf-S8UhWh-2m5wZhP-Qw979k-2m5tidN-8xJkN6-287Q8HK-3d3fyN-23ExBEF-286ip4H-221AbWQ-23GacgH-kFhmQ-2m5jDVx-YC5moB-6XLrC2\" title=\"Snake Oil\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/5069\/5681679855_f319ed71bd_z.jpg\" alt=\"Snake Oil\" width=\"640\" height=\"457\"><\/a><script async=\"\" src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Some such remedies contained oil made from the fat of snakes, especially rattlesnakes, but many didn\u2019t. In the early 20th century such products started to be condemned in professional pharmacy journals as they didn\u2019t contain any snake oil at all. As a result the term <strong>snake oil<\/strong> became associated with phony remedies and quackery [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/word\/snake%20oil\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>In French <strong>snake oil<\/strong> is known as <strong>rem\u00e8de de charlatan<\/strong> (charlatan medicine) or <strong>poudre de perlimpinpin<\/strong> (perlimpinpin powder).<\/p>\n<p>The word <strong>charlatan<\/strong> (quack (doctor), charlatan), comes from the Italian <strong>ciarlatano<\/strong> (charlatan, quack), from <strong>ciarlatore<\/strong> (chatterer) and <strong>cerretano<\/strong> (hawker, quack). The latter term means literally a \u201cnative of Cerreto\u201d, and is the root of this word because the Italian village of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cerreto_di_Spoleto\">Cerreto di Spoleto<\/a> in Umbria in the province of Perugia was once widely known for its quacks.<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/sverjans\/48438133982\/in\/photolist-ibj3w5-Q1kHL6-QEFnh9-dkeeUB-2gNj6zy-2gNinEa-2gNj7Zs-2gNj6F5-2gNin5Y-2gNimzQ-2gNiny3-2gNj7RG-2gNj7HW-2gNinzW-2gNj8mQ-2gNj7Dn-2gNinzR-2gNinzA-2gNj6rs-2gNj7VV\" title=\"Arrived in Umbria. Some views from our rental in the hills of Cerreto di Spoleto. Lovely nature, birds and cicadas as background music.\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/48438133982_70f031e3aa_z.jpg\" alt=\"Arrived in Umbria. Some views from our rental in the hills of Cerreto di Spoleto in de Valnerina valley. Lovely nature, birds and cicadas as background music.\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\"><\/a><script async=\"\" src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><strong>Perlimpinpin<\/strong> [p\u025b\u0281.l\u025b\u0303.p\u025b\u0303.p\u025b\u0303] is one of the French names for Rumpelstiltskin, a company that makes children\u2019s clothes, a restaurant in Paris, and probably others things. The origins of the word are uncertain. According to one theory, it\u2019s a combination of <strong>pr\u00eale<\/strong> (horsetail &#8211; <em>Equisetum hyemale<\/em>) and <strong>pimpin<\/strong> (<em>Pandanus montanus<\/em> &#8211; a type of tree from the island of R\u00e9union), two plants that were used as in a herbal medicine in 17th century France [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelocal.fr\/20220214\/french-expression-of-the-day-poudre-de-perlimpinpin\/\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The term snake oil is used to refer to a scam, a fraudulent medicine or remedy, or deceptive marketing. It was first appeared in writing in 1858 in the USA. In Georgia, for example, snake oil was sold as a folk remedy for rheumatism and gout, and it was said to be a cure for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,107,111,128,10,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-etymology","category-french","category-italian","category-language","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22033"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22034,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22033\/revisions\/22034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}