fob off

fob off

There are two ways of using this phrasal verb, either with the person or the thing as the object. You can fob someone off with something (or just fob someone off, with no further complement stated), or you can fob something off on someone; in both cases someone is deceived into accepting something inferior or unwelcome. The first construction seems to be more common:

• She tried to fob him off tactfully at first, but then he became brutal —D. M. Thomas, 1990

• Do not allow yourself to be fobbed off without getting the information you need —G. Brandreth et al., 1992

• There is no ‘mass audience’ of uncritical couch potatoes ready to be fobbed off with any old rubbish —East Anglian Daily Times, 1993

• We all know when we return we have to take a drop in salary and pay higher taxation but these agencies were fobbing me off with junior positions —Sunday Times, 2000

• (on construction) Aghast at the roll-call of drunks, adulterers and pederasts that Central Office had fobbed off upon him, [etc.] —J. Paxman, 1990

• We no longer hear much about one of the worst wines ever fobbed off on us by the French–Sun, 2006.

The act of deceit is a fobbing-off, with the occasional plural fobbings-off:

• We are also aware of other children in the borough in a similar position, and have had first-hand accounts of delays, fobbings-off, and ‘dumping’ in unsuitable nurseries —Guardian, 1997.