Imitation or counterfeit?

[Joel S. Berson]

At 10/13/2011 12:06 AM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>The problem with hairy crabs is that there is outright fraud (as in the
>other cases), so "imitation" is not quite right--"imitation crab" is not
>fraudulently presented crab. But "counterfeit", to me, has an "Ersatz"
>quality to it, so that does not seem quite right either. It's the same
>issue as someone serving dogfish in place of haddock

There is "imitation crab *meat*", where the meat is from some other
sea creature (I won't guess).  A past and perhaps still present
scandal.  There, and also for dogfish replacing haddock, I think
"imitation" (imitation crab, imitation haddock) is OK.

Joel

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