kayfabe

kayfabe
 n.— «All participants, including fans, present others with at least a bit of a “kayfabe,” a term which is taken from nineteenth-century carnival, medicine show, and sideshow practice and simply refers to a con or deception. Kayfabe can also, less pejoratively, refer to participants’ self-promotional, rhetorically inflated, and somewhat truth-obfuscating patter that resembles that of the talkers at the traditional sideshow. A kayfabian, then, is a con artist; most wrestlers are proud to be called kayfabians because it means they’re in on the (con) game.» —by Sharon Mazer Professional Wrestling: Sport and Spectacle Feb. 1, 1998. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)

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Further reading

Blessing Box (episode #1613)

Is there such a thing as a “neutral” accent, and if so what does it sound like? And that quirk in the way southern Californians talk about freeways. They’ll say things like take the 405 and get on the 8. Why the definite article...

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