straw purchase(r)/buyer

[Baker, John]

        I'm quite sure that Arnold is correct in connecting these
expressions to "man of straw" and "straw man."  The former is the older
term; Merriam-Webster gives a 1624 date and defines it simply as "straw
man."  Black's Law Dictionary gives another definition:  "men of straw.
Hist. False witnesses who wandered around courts and were paid to give
untrue testimony. * They stuffed straw into their shoes so that
advocates could recognize them. See STRAW MAN (4)."

        "Straw man" has several meanings, handily gathered by Black's:
"straw man. 1. A fictitious person, esp. one that is weak or flawed. 2.
A tenuous and exaggerated counterargument that an advocate puts forward
for the sole purpose of disproving it. -- Also termed straw-man
argument. 3. A third party used in some transactions as a temporary
transferee to allow the principal parties to accomplish something that
is otherwise impermissible. Cf. DUMMY. 4. A person hired to post a
worthless bail bond for the release of an accused. -- Also termed
stramineus homo. See MEN OF STRAW."

        M-W gives an 1886 date for "straw man."  Here is an antedating
to 1867:  "At the sale G., by a straw man, became the purchaser."
Graham v. Holloway, 44 Ill. 385 (1867).

        This sense of one who purchases as agent, without a personal
interest in the transaction and for some dubious purpose, seems to be
the source of "straw purchase(r)," which of course did not originate in
federal firearms law.  The earliest example I see is from 1891:
"Defendant, in the transaction under review, did not act with candor and
fairness towards plaintiff. As soon as he got him to sign a memorandum
authorizing the sale of the property for $4,500, he went directly and
obtained a straw purchaser; advanced the cash payment to him; had taken
the trade off this straw purchaser's hands before plaintiff had
acknowledged the deed; got the property for less than half its value;
and, after he had thus got it, he writes his principal that the
purchaser did not like his bargain, and wanted to sell the property. A
court of equity cannot sanction such conduct."  Euneau v. Rieger, 105
Mo. 659, 16 S.W. 854 (1891).


John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Arnold Zwicky
Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2009 11:39 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: straw purchase(r)/buyer

caught in the NYT on 3/20/09, in "Prosecutors Seek Appeal In Dismissal
Of Gun Case", by James C. McKinley Jr. (p. A12):

Federal agents say the smugglers, who have pleaded guilty to lesser
charges, recruited at least seven people with clean records as straw
purchasers to buy the guns on their behalf, paying them $100 a gun.

... Judge Gottsfield determined that even though the straw buyers had
made false statements on federal forms claiming they were buying for
themselves, they were legally eligible to buy the weapons, so the
deception dd not amount to a "material falsification" under state law.

He also asserted that federal gun laws require prosecutors to prove not
just that someone lied to a gun dealer to obtain a weapon for someone
else, but also that the person who ended up with the gun could not
legally buy one.

[the straw buyers were acting on behalf of a gun dealer, George
Iknadosian, of Glendale, Arizona, who was accused of arming a Mexican
gun cartel.] .....

there's a wikipedia page for "straw purchase", which cites the term as
specific to U.S. federal firearms law (and there are lots of hits for
"straw purchaser" in this context), while maintaining that in common
usage it has been extended to other sorts of purchases, like buying
liquor on behalf of someone under legal drinking age.  no examples are
cited there, however. but grant barrett has a quotation for "straw
buyer" here --
   http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/citations/straw_buyer_1/
with reference to a type of illegal land flip, and you can find
occurrences of "straw purchaser" in this context.

"straw purchase", "straw purchaser", and "straw buyer" are not in OED,
NOAD2, or AHD4.

the expressions are almost surely related to "man of straw" and "straw
man".  and compare this cite for "straw bail" in the OED:

1859  Bartlett Dict. Amer. (ed. 2) 455: worthless bail; bail given by
'man of straw', i.e. persons who pretend to the possession of property,
but have none.

arnold

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