From OED.com -- popping

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Sun Jul 22 03:43:46 UTC 2012


On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 6:10 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> "Hustling" isn't "popping" or "treating" though,
> is it?  A hustler tries *not* to pay for what he receives.

Hustlers don't try to hustle one another. After all, "You can't play a
player," because "[Masters of the] Game recognize [other masters of
the] game." When they're in the club with the in-crowd, the situation
is different. It calls for potlatch-like conspicuous expenditure -
"making it rain [money]" - to impress their peers with their success
in confidencing and whipping game on the squares lame enough to work
for a living.

It's the poor man's version of the conspicuous *consumption* of the rich.
--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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