[Ads-l] Sleaze Letigimized - Euphemism Rampage

[David Daniel]

Ah, so scalpers are now recognized as providing a needed, mainstream
service. OK. I guess things have changed and I failed to keep up with the
times. But still, as I said, scalpers went to jail here in Brazil for
"brokering" World Cup tickets and I, probably being old fashioned or perhaps
just parochial or naive, still see scalping as a sleazy enterprise. IMHO,
just because sleaze is made legal, a la Wall Street, it is no less sleazy.
(In 2012 I ended up with an extra ticket for the US Open at the Olympic Club
in San Francisco. I sold it on Craig's List for face value. Yep, naive.)
DAD

Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: Sleaze Letigimized - Euphemism Rampage
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On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 3:35 AM, David Daniel wrote:
>
> From CNN Money: Re Super Bowl tickets, thousands of which are given to
"...
> the teams, which end up using brokers to sell them on the secondary
market."
> So now scalpers (touts - UK) are "brokers" and ply their trade proudly,
> making money for the teams in the "secondary market"? Back at World Cup
> time, a bunch of people went to jail here in Rio for scalping. They just
> picked the wrong country I guess.

The "secondary market" for reselling tickets has been legitimized by
the U.S. professional sports industry, allowing people to resell
tickets via StubHub and similar services. (Presumably the
leagues/teams get a cut of the profits.) So your one-time "scalpers"
are now legitimate "brokers." Cf. "budtender," replacing "pot dealer"
in states that have legalized the sale of marijuana.

--bgz

-- 
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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