‘dead-cat strategy’: meaning and origin

the strategy consisting in deliberately making a shocking announcement in order to divert attention from a difficulty in which one is embroiled—from the image of throwing a dead cat on the table—first defined in 2013 by Boris Johnson

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a linguistic investigation into ‘trumpery’

MEANINGS   – attractive articles of little value or use – practices or beliefs that are superficially or visually appealing but have little real value or worth   ORIGIN   The noun trumpery, first recorded in the mid-15th century, is from the French noun tromperie, which means deception, trickery. This was one of the original meanings in […]

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