ADD 1 How to spot a grifter (C2)

When I reviewed the content and vocabulary from episode 1 ‘The dead internet theory and generative AI’ there was a common thread, namely that of people exploiting AI for personal gain. For this reason, I chose the following key words for part 1 of the Deep Dive: grifter, bad actor, to foist something on someone, to pass something off as, to be wooed by, to turn out to be.

When I think of the word ‘grifter’, I have a very specific picture in my mind of the kind of person defined by the word. The picture I have has taken shape over the years, growing and changing as friends, colleagues and acquaintances have defined people I knew as ‘grifters’. So, if I hear the word it triggers a kind of generic profile in my mind; that of an utterly charming but very dangerous person. Grifters are extremely charismatic and attractive. They are engaging and entrancing to the point of having what one might describe as a magnetic personality. They have a way with words and are able to create the most convincing and winning arguments. The new people a grifter meets are immediately wooed by – or persuaded by – his energy, passion and conviction. At first, a grifter’s motivations and projects seem highly plausible and judicious, but then something strange happens. The veneer appears to fade as people who were initially so impressed by him begin to realise that he is playing them and exploiting their good faith for his own benefit. This is because, in essence, a grifter is a con man and a calculated exploiter of those around him. A grifter is a bad actor, which means a person who acts in bad faith in order to profit from others. When this becomes evident to the other people, they stop seeing the persuasive talk as convincing and start seeing it as glib; superficial and insincere. All the smooth talk ultimately turns out to be nothing more than hot air.

Grifters are always looking to foist things on other people. When I say ‘foist’, I mean ‘push’, so ‘to foist things on someone’ means to try to get someone to accept something that they really don’t want. One kind of grifter may use smooth talk, flattery and persuasion to foist his responsibilities onto the shoulders of other people, so that they wind up doing his work for him. Another kind of grifter may try to foist physical products on other people. He may be a salesman offering something that seems too good to be true, and which turns out to be valueless.

The noun ‘grift’ is the word used to describe the particular scam or fraud that the grifter operates. You can also say ‘to run a grift’, meaning ‘to operate a scam’. There are many, many types of online grift. There are, for example, those in which people claim to be content creators, but have actually done little or no work themselves, instead using AI to do it on their behalf.

Another common grift is that of creating a meme-coin cryptocurrency, which appears to be an attractive investment opportunity, when the project turns out to have no practical use case. The grift involves generating interest in the cryptocurrency and wooing early investors to part with their money, usually with promises of fantastic returns on their investment. Those who run this kind of grift pass the meme-coin off as something of genuine value and something that solves a real world problem when, in fact, it is completely worthless. The money that hapless victims invest in the coin is called the ‘pump’, which raises the value of the coin, and this is followed by the ‘dump’ whereby the grifter who created the coin sells his or her entire portfolio of the meme-coin and pockets the proceeds. The value of the coin then plummets (i.e. falls sharply), making the portfolios of investors worthless. This ‘pump and dump’ scam is also called a ‘rug pull’ and comes from the phrase, ‘to pull the rug out from someone’s feet’. If you are standing on a rug and someone pulls it sharply, you will fall over. If you invest in a pump and dump scam, you will suffer.

One more online grift worth mentioning is short-form video ads (or reels) on social media that sell online courses about how to sell an online course. Even saying it out loud sounds completely ridiculous, but there are people charging an absolute premium for their incredible online course that will teach you how to sell – wait for it – an online course. At no point in this grift is there any mention of any content that actually adds value, but there is plenty of talk about how selling such a course will provide fantastic revenues. Here’s how it works. Grifter A creates a course which promises to help victim A sell a course online. The course itself is nonexistent. It’s not as if the grifter is selling a course on how to get fit or learn Arabic; there is precisely zero added value. Victim A spends the money on the course and learns the grift, but has no course to sell on to other people, only the knowledge of how to create a course to sell a nonexistent course. Victim A then becomes grifter B and foists the course on victim C. And so on and so forth. It’s a thoroughly depressing circular logic that would be far less successful if the victims were not so desperate to find some alternative means of income. And here I hold my hands up and admit that, when I was looking for an alternative to secondary teaching, I was wooed by these bad actors and I even bookmarked a number of their videos. On second viewing, the videos seemed increasingly suspicious or just plain fishy. Many of them contained images of the fantastic wealth that the grifter had accumulated, presumably as some kind of social proof that the project had been a resounding success. I found myself wondering why a person would feel the need to flash the cash. Most wealthy people I know are very circumspect about their money and go out of their way not to draw attention to themselves. I learned subsequently that the cars and mansions in these videos are usually rented by the grifter who passes them off as his own.

Grifting is nothing new. Years ago, my brother and I went to a funfair that was visiting our town for the summer. It was replete with all the usual rides, slides and stalls. One of the stalls was a game where you needed to throw wooden rings over bottles of soft drinks that were mounted on wooden plinths. Incidentally, a plinth is a square block used as a base or foundation. In any case, if your ring went over the bottle and the wooden plinth you won the bottle. My brother was interested but suspicious. He paid for a turn and was given five rings. Although he managed to throw a couple of them over the bottles, not one of the rings went down to the bottom of the plinth, which was a prerequisite for winning the bottle. He was annoyed and had a hunch that this might be some kind of scam, so he asked the stallholder to demonstrate that the rings actually fitted over the wooden plinths. At first, the stallholder refused but my brother kicked up such a fuss that he eventually gave in, picked up a ring and pushed it down one of the plinths. I say ‘pushed it down’ because the ring touched the edges of the plinth. That meant, of course, that the force of gravity would never be sufficient to enable a ring, thrown at an angle to fall down to the bottom of a plinth. The stallholder was therefore a grifter (in this case, a small-time scammer running a repetitive scam).

To finish this first part of the episode, I’d like to look a little more closely at the phrase ‘to foist something on someone’. I mentioned previously that it means to try to get someone to accept something that they really don’t really want. If someone foists something on you, they are forcing you to accept something that you don’t want. A typical use of this term would be an employee who says, ‘My boss foisted this report write-up on me at four o’clock on Friday afternoon’. In this scenario the boss has a report to do. He’s too lazy to do it himself so he gives it to his subordinate. The subordinate can’t very well say, ‘no’ to this because he doesn’t feel comfortable refusing his boss. ‘Foisting’ can therefore refer to tasks, ideas or obligations just as much (as) to physical things, such as poor-quality products. If you say that someone foisted something on you, you are communicating that (a) you didn’t want it, (b) you don’t approve of the person who did it and (c) it was imposed on you against your will.

In the second part of this episode, I’d like to look at some general words and phrases that appeared in episode 1 of the free podcast, but which aren’t related to each other in any particular way. In this part, I’ll read sentences that appeared in the transcript of ‘The dead internet theory and generative AI’ and examine key words and phrases that it contains.

***

‘When I decided that I was going to start a podcasting business and shared my vision with other people, it raised a few eyebrows.’ ‘To raise a few eyebrows’ has quite a nuanced and specific meaning. When people register surprise on their faces, they sometimes raise (lift) their eyebrows to indicate this surprise. However, even though they raise their eyebrows they may not actually say anything to indicate why they are surprised. So the phrase ‘it raised a few eyebrows’ indicates that people expressed surprise without necessarily saying anything, perhaps out of politeness or the desire to avoid conflict. The phrase is both an idiom and a set phrase, which means that it almost never changes in form. Here are some example phrases:

‘The actor’s critical acceptance speech raised a few eyebrows with its boldness.’

‘We certainly raised a few eyebrows with our risqué fancy-dress costumes.’

As you may know, English people tend to imply meaning rather than expressly state it. The expression, ‘It raised a few eyebrows’ may appear to communicate that a few people were mildly surprised. In reality, it could communicate that the reaction was relatively strong even if people didn’t speak out negatively about my decision. When I told people that I intended to start a podcasting business quite a number of people expressed surprise, given the proliferation of AI-generated content, but were careful not to criticise openly. So, in this case, ‘it raised a few eyebrows’ in fact means, ‘quite a number of people were surprised but were careful not to criticise openly.’

***

‘…replete with technically perfect lessons’. I love the word ‘replete’ and it always makes me smile to hear it. In this context, it is more of a formal synonym for ‘full of’ or ‘completed with’. I could just as well say ‘full of technically perfect lessons’ or ‘completed with technically perfect lessons’. The word ‘replete’ is often associated with ‘being full to satisfaction’. If a host asks a dinner guest if they would like a second serving of food, and the dinner guest is full, a perfect response would be, ‘Thank you so much, but I’m (or ‘I feel’) replete.’ There is something mildly unacceptable about saying, ‘No, thank you. I’m completely full’ or, ‘I’d love to, but I’ve had enough and I couldn’t eat any more.’ The phrases ‘I’ve had enough’ or ‘I’m (completely) full’ are better suited to informal conversation among family members or friends. Please allow me to digress for a moment to mention the word ‘satiated’, which is the scientific word to describe the signals that the brain gives a person to tell them that they have had enough to eat. In other words, ‘replete’ also means ‘satiated’, although nobody would say to a dinner host, ‘I feel satiated’. I mention ‘satiated’ because I’ve seen a new collocation repeated in a number of contexts, relating to the function of the brain and the body in communicating the message that no more food needs to be eaten. This collocation is ‘satiety mechanisms’.

Now, the passive phrase ‘to be replete with’ is formal, given the low-frequency of the word ‘replete’ but it is a beautiful phrase, meaning ‘to be filled with’ or ‘to be packed with’. You could, for example, say, ‘Marlborough is a town replete with excellent restaurants’ or, in a negative context, ‘The boy’s homework was replete with errors’.

***

‘Almost on a daily basis, I read some scaremongering article about how we’re sleepwalking into a complete catastrophe’. The word ‘monger’ is a traditional and rather old-fashioned English word to describe a person who sells a particular product. The three remaining ‘mongers’ in common English usage are ‘fishmonger’ (referring to a shop that sells fish), ‘ironmonger’ (referring to a traditional hardware shop) and ‘cheesemonger’ (a cheese shop). The word ‘monger’ can also be used critically to describe someone who tries to influence others through their behaviour and actions. The key compound nouns containing ‘monger’ are:

Scaremonger = a person who spreads worrying rumours in order to generate fear

Warmonger = a person who encourages war

Rumourmonger = a person who engages in gossip or rumours

Hatemonger = a person who encourages hatred towards others

In the case of ‘scaremonger’, there is also a regular verb (to scaremonger), which is often used in the gerund form in opinion phrases such as, ‘I hate scaremongering and I hate scaremongers’ or, ‘Scaremongering about Ultra Processed Food has worried a lot of people recently’.

***

Not too long ago, I felt I needed to brush up on my Finnish. The phrasal verb ‘to brush up on something’ communicates the idea that you have previously been good at something but that you’ve lost the skill due to not having used it. It is particularly used for knowledge-based abilities that have become ‘rusty’ from lack of use. Anything that requires knowledge or some kind of mental workout is something that you can ‘brush up on’. For example you could say, ‘He needs to brush up on his piano skills’ or, ‘I’ve been brushing up on my French.’

***

‘When I was listening to an AI-generated podcast, the female voice suddenly started reeling off a series of random numbers and code that made absolutely no sense’. The phrasal verb ‘To reel off’ is transitive, meaning that it has an object. It means ‘to recite a series of things (possibly in a list) very quickly and mechanically’. Here are several examples of how it is used:

‘When I asked him if he used to follow Manchester United, he started reeling off a list of all the players who beat Bayern Munich in 1999’.

‘I could reel off the complete back catalogue of Beatles albums in order.’

***

‘It took me a while to get a handle on my feelings.’ I use this phrasal verb often because it communicates a lot. Essentially it means ‘to understand’ but it also has the connotation of coming to terms with, quantifying and having a holistic understanding of something. It’s used very specifically with the nouns ‘feelings’ or ‘situation’. For example:

‘Before I talk to him about his finances, I need to get a handle on the whole situation’. This means that I need to have a general understanding of all the things that are going on before I approach him to speak about his use of money.

You probably know that the word ‘handle’ is most frequently used in the collocation ‘door handle’. Without a handle it’s difficult to open a door, therefore ‘to get a handle on something’ means that you are able to find an object that enables you to ‘open the door of understanding’, as it were.

***

When a user leverages AI for personal betterment it means that they use AI to enable a better outcome (such as a new repeatable skill) which is something positive. The verb ‘to leverage’ is a transitive verb, which means that it takes an object. For example, ‘he leveraged his negotiating skills to get a better salary’. Let’s explore this a little. First, the word ‘lever’ is a noun to describe a rod or pole that you can put underneath something in order to make it move. For example if you use a metal rod to leverage a heavy stone, you place the end of the rod at the point where the heavy stone touches the ground. The place where the rod is between the ground and the stone is called the pivot point. It is the point where you are able to pull the lever (the rod) in order to make the stone move. In and of itself, the rod is not a particularly impressive thing, but it can be used to move something much heavier, if it is used wisely. Therefore, the idea behind the verb ‘to leverage’ is that a thing of some value, such as a skill, is used carefully and with a particular focus in order to obtain a greater advantage. If I gain leverage over someone it means that I have access to some compromising information, or some weak point, that I can exploit in order to gain an advantage over them. And this brings us neatly back to where we started the Deep Dive: ‘A grifter is a bad actor who leverages the desire other people have to become wealthy in order to deceive them by foisting things on them that turn out to be pure deception’.

Thank you for joining me on this first Deep Dive. If you want to completely transform your English language expression, join me on Patreon for all the Linguacade Deep Dives. In these sessions, I break down the meanings, nuances, applications and etymology of the phrases highlighted in bold throughout the transcripts. Subscribers get full access to the complete masterclass archive across all levels. I look forward to seeing you there.

Focus Keyphrase C2 English podcast lesson on grifters who foist things on other people.
SEO title: (60 characters including space bars) How to spot a grifter (C2) | Linguacade
SEO description: (160 characters maximum) Explore the vocabulary of deception in this C2 Deep Dive. Learn the meaning of ‘grifter’, ‘bad actor’, and ‘foist’ through real-world examples and analogies.
Episode show notes (700 characters maximum) In this C2 Deep Dive, we examine the language of exploitation and the profile of a ‘grifter’. I explain how these ‘bad actors’ use magnetic personalities to ‘woo’ victims before their talk turns out to be ‘hot air’. We look at how scammers ‘foist’ valueless products on others and how ‘pump and dump’ cryptocurrency schemes operate. The lesson also explores high-level idioms and phrasal verbs. We discuss what it means to ‘raise a few eyebrows’ and how to ‘get a handle on’ complex situations. I explain the formal use of ‘replete’, the history of the word ‘monger’, and the mechanics of ‘leveraging’ a skill for an advantage. This session provides the nuanced vocabulary needed to discuss deception with authority.
Excerpt (300 characters maximum) Learn to identify the ‘bad actors’ and ‘grifters’ in the digital age. This C2 lesson breaks down sophisticated vocabulary related to scams and influence, such as ‘foisting’ obligations on others. We also explore idioms like ‘raising a few eyebrows’ and ‘getting a handle on’ feelings.