[Ads-l] sting = arrest?

[James A. Landau]

Last night's ABC News with David Muir talked about a "sting" of a teenager who had been passing himself off as a doctor.  The commentary promised to show the "sting".  However, what was shown on TV was the arrest.  Nothing was said about how the suspect had been caught and nothing was said about any undercover police investigation.

Apparently David Muir (and his writers) think that "sting" is a synonym for "arrest" rather than a term for a type of undercover police operation.

"Sting" meaning undercover operation is from the title of the 1973 movie "The Sting" which, I am told, is based without attribution on David Maurer's book _The Big Con_.  A con game is a type of fraud in which the victim is led to believe he is engaging in a criminal activity (in the movie, the victim was led to believe his accomplice was delaying Western Union race results so that he could put in his bet after the race was over but before the betting establishment got the results.  Hence the saying "you can't con an honest man" since an honest man would not participate in such an illegal scheme.  The saying is often incorrectly quoted as "you can't cheat an honest man" which is false.

The famous police stings of the 1970's involved the police setting up a fake fencing operation or similar, hence they qualified as "con games" so the term "sting" was justified.

- Jim Landau

PS:  on the subject of Feghoots and shaggy dog stories, did you hear the one about transporting buoys over a state lion for immortal porpoises?  This was a violation of the Womann Act.

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