snake-oil salesman

このところ疲労と仕事の山が押し寄せてきて、調子がよくありません。

そんな中、昨日の白金台支所で同僚のアメリカ人とのsmall talkで出てきたのが、英語教育界、いや英語教育産業にも多数いると思われるsnail-oil salesmanでした。これは「（米）いんちき薬を売る行商人」のことを指しますが、転じて「ペテン師、詐欺師」となります。日本にもいた「ガマの油売り」と同じ発想なんですね。以下は彼らの典型的な口上（sales pitch）です。（UG）

　　　　　

The proverbial Snake Oil Salesman has been around for Centuries - perhaps eons.  And they still exist today.  Do we blame them for their odious acts - or blame ourselves for being foolish enough to listen to them?

"My Friends!  Gather 'round!  What I have to show you is nothing short of astounding.  Dr. Elixer's Patent Rheumatism Medication!  Cures everything from the common cold to deadly cancer!  And only $9.99 a bottle!  Step right up!"

Or so went the pitch of the snake-oil salesman - a fixture in turn-of-the Century America.  They would go from town to town, selling quack cures in a bottle - usually just alcohol and laudanum (opium) and then skedaddle before the local patsies got wise that they had been conned.

http://livingstingy.blogspot.jp/2011/04/snake-oil-salesmen.html

http://www.davemanuel.com/investor-dictionary/snake-oil-salesman/