Blag, Blagger, Blagging

Filed under: Specific Words
4 Comments

A word that I had seen before but wasn't really sure of the definition—blagging. Dan Sabbagh and Ewen MacAskill, in an article headlined ‘I was nothing more than a common thief’, define it as using subterfuge to obtain private information from banks, mortgage companies or utility firms. But they don't get around to doing that until a dozen paragraphs and half a dozen uses in, curse them.

The OED doesn't really have that definition yet, it seems. It's a specific variant of what they do have, which is to obtain or achieve by persuasive talk or plausible deception. I wonder whether the more specific sense will stick, or will drive out the more general one.

The derivation is presumably from the French, but I wonder if perhaps the word blagger was taken up so rapidly (it seems) under the influence of blaggard, or blackguard. At any rate, it's a wonderfully contemptuous-sounding word, innit? Blagger. Nobody wants to be a blagger when they grow up.

Thanks,
-Ed.

4 Responses to “Blag, Blagger, Blagging”

  1. Holly

    I’m used to hearing it used much more mildly, as in “I blagged my way through that job interview” or “I’m not sure how to run this meeting but I can blag it. ” In this sense, I think a lot of us already are blaggers. 🙂 (Though actually I don’t hear it as a noun like that, come to think of it. Blagging is something people do, not something we are.)

    reply

    • -Ed.

      The use of ‘blag’ meaning, more or less, to bullshit your way into (or out of) something is older. I think the impersonation aspect is the new part, and that ‘blagger’ is being used now to describe this sort of professional journalism-adjacent person. The notion of somebody being able to make a living blagging in that older and more general sense seems unlikely, which would make the noun form less whatsit, I would imagine.

      Thanks,
      -E.

      reply

  2. KTO

    Huh. So in this use, related to phishing via social engineering?

    reply

    • -Ed.

      An interesting distinction (pointed out to me elsewhere) is that ‘phishing’ is, in common use, an attempt to trick individuals into giving away their institutional information, whereas ‘blagging’ in this sense is about tricking institutions into giving away personal information about someone connected with them. Not unrelated, but a different angle. I think perhaps the American way of coining a word for this, then, might be something like ‘journophishing’.

      Thanks,
      -E.

      reply

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