Lokhotron = Scam?

[Tatyana Buzina]

Hello,
The idea of referring to crooks as "lokhi" is rather new to me. Neither I, nor any of my Russian friends/colleagues have ever heard about car salesmen being called "lokhi." "Lokh" can only be a victim of a scam, not a perpetrator.
Regards,
Tatyana

>The word 'lokhotron' is included in Mokienko and Nikitina's Bol'shoi 
>slovar' russkogo zhargona, where it is defined as a sort of lottery 
>run by confidence tricksters.  I assume the word is a pun on 
>'lototron', the machine which disgorges the balls in a normal 
>lottery.  Following on from Josh Wilson's message, I thought the 
>'lokhi' were the victims, not the perpetrators.
>
>John Dunn.
>
>
>>Dear Seelangers,
>>
>>In working with some of the videos from the website Avtorskoe televidenie
>>(http://www.atv.ru), I've come across the word "lokhotron" more than once.
>>My sense is that it's the equivalent of the English "scam" (the hits on
>>Yandex would seem to bear this out), but I wanted to turn to my fellow
>>Seelangtsovy to see if I might be missing something here.
>>
>>BTW, the ATV site has a lot of very useful material--2-3 minute clips on a
>>variety of topics.  Thanks to the list for pointing out this site!
>>
>>Thanks in advance.  Happy Holidays to all!
>>
>>Tony Vanchu
>>
>>Dr. Anthony J. Vanchu
>>Director, JSC Language Education Center
>>TechTrans International, Inc.
>>NASA Johnson Space Center
>>Houston, TX
>>Phone:  (281) 483-0644
>>Fax:  (281) 483-4050
>>
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>


-- 
Tatyana V. Buzina,
Associate Professor, Chair,
Dpt. of European Languages,
Institute for Linguistics,
Russian State U for the Humanities

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