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What other phrases derive from specific famous crimes, true or fictitious?

English Language & Usage Asked by gen-ℤ ready to perish on September 22, 2020

I don’t know what made this enter my mind, but I found it very interesting that the following phrase is so commonplace but comes from a very recent crime:

drink the Kool-Aid

: to demonstrate unquestioning obedience or loyalty to someone or something.

Alludes to the Jonestown Massacre, the mass murder of 909 people in 1978.

I started racking my brain for other examples, and was able to come up with a decent one:

gaslight

: to attempt to make (someone) believe that he or she is going insane (as by subjecting that person to a series of experiences that have no rational explanation).

Alludes to British play Gas Light (1938) in which Jack attempts to convince Bella that she is going crazy in order to hide the fact that he is attempting to steal his neighbour’s jewellery and ultimate that he murdered the neighbour.

Granted, the second example isn’t perfect because gaslight alludes to the psychological manipulation, not the murder, but it’s alright in my book because I’d consider it a form of witness tampering!

What other phrases in English have their etymologies in famous, specific crimes? The crimes can be true or fictitious, and they don’t have to be murder.

2 Answers

the dog that didn’t bark

The phrase identifies something that is significant because it didn’t happen.

From a Sherlock Holmes story:

[. . . which] features some of Conan Doyle's most effective plotting, hingeing on the "curious incident of the dog in the night-time":

Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?

Holmes: To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.

Gregory: The dog did nothing in the night-time.

Holmes: That was the curious incident.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventure_of_Silver_Blaze

See https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?corpus=26&smoothing=3&content=dog+that+didn’t+bark&year_end=2019&year_start=1800&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cdog%20that%20did%20not%20bark%3B%2Cc0 for examples in both fiction and non-fiction.

Answered by Xanne on September 22, 2020

Ponzi scheme

In the 1920's, Charles Ponzi carried out this scheme and became well known throughout the United States because of the huge amount of money that he took in.[5] His original scheme was based on the legitimate arbitrage of international reply coupons for postage stamps, but he soon began diverting new investors' money to make payments to earlier investors and to himself.[6] Unlike earlier, similar schemes, Ponzi's gained considerable press coverage both within the United States and internationally both while it was being perpetrated and after it collapsed – this notoriety eventually led to the type of scheme being named after him.[7]

Answered by Xanne on September 22, 2020

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