Filter Coffee #113

On Black Sheep & Sheep's Clothing

Dear readers, I got some interesting comments on FC #112:

My dear friend Murali Neelakantan said: 

“1. Being offered wine to taste before you buy is not really a right to reject for any reason other than it is corked or has become vinegar. You shouldn’t be rejecting wine because it wasn’t tasting as you expected it to.

2. Common law recognised privilege only for 3 professions, and they are termed 'noble' - lawyers, doctors, and priests. The only other relationship where privilege can be asserted is marriage. No comment on whether that is noble or not.”

Another Murali, an old friend, was inspired by acronyms and sent this message:

“PDS – Please Do not Stop - after reaching 200!”

🐑 In Sheep’s Clothing

All of us remember the nursery rhyme “Baa Baa Black Sheep”. I had imagined it to be at least a century old, as my maternal uncle, who lived to blow out 103 candles, had sung this to some of the kids. But I underestimated it by quite a bit. This was written by an unknown writer in 1731 and was first published in England in 1744 in Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book. Imagine someone nameless making himself immortal through a nursery rhyme! 

Originally, the last two lines were “None for the little boy, That cries in the lane”. I, too, remember singing these lines. Apparently, to make it child-friendly and happier by showing that everybody got the wool, the lines were changed to: “One for the little boy, who lives down the lane”.

Rudyard Kipling wrote a semi-autobiographical story titled Baa Baa, Black Sheep which was published in 1888. Kipling and his younger sister are named Punch and Judy in this story. Kipling's parents, then serving in India, sent Kipling and his sister to a foster home in England and apparently, the foster mother named ‘Aunt Rosa’ did not treat Punch well and called him a ‘black sheep'. Perhaps this could be the reason for the title of the story.

In the nursery rhyme, the phrase black sheep allegedly refers to the African slaves, but this is unsubstantiated. The fact is that ‘black sheep’ has a modern connotation. A person is referred to as a black sheep in the family if he is a rebel or untrustworthy or someone who does not fit in with others. He does not mind being isolated and he may not care what others might think of him. In fact, he can be quite proud of himself for being different.

The phrase is often used in a derogatory way, to mean a person is untrustworthy or that unreliable. When I surfed the net for the notoriety of the phrase, I found that a single black sheep in a flock was considered to be good luck by shepherds, but in 1822, someone coined the idiom ‘black sheep' to denote that a member of a group was unlike others and of less worth, supposedly because a black sheep’s wool was sometimes of lower value because it could not be dyed.

The phrase 'in sheep’s clothing' or 'in sheep’s skin' is an allusion to a person who is deceitful or An enemy masquerading as a friend. The term comes from Aesop’s fable about a wolf dressing up as a sheep and sneaking up on the flock. 

So, who is better? A black sheep or someone in sheep’s clothing? Going by the meanings ascribed to the two phrases, it would appear that a person, though a black sheep, is not necessarily wily, pretentious, and mendacious like the one in sheep’s skin. A person in sheep’s skin is one who masquerades as a friend with ulterior motives.

Imposters are a species that come close to being in sheep’s skin. They are the kind who make deceitful pretences. An imposter pretends to be someone else, trying to convince you that they are what they claim to be, and extracts from you something of value, including money. A guy pretending to be a long-lost cousin, policeman, or tax official may tell you a very convincing story and persuade you to yield to his entreaties or demands, as the case may be. Some kind of financial gain is at the heart of the imposter interaction. A guy pretending to be from a bank and extracting information from unsuspecting customers and cleaning up their bank accounts. They call it phishing, but the fraudsters can easily be classified as the internet sheep-skins.

Distractors are another kind of sheep-skin guy. They distract people’s attention by pretending to be do-gooders and deprive them of something valuable or cause distress.

A friend of mine was travelling to the US, and he had his briefcase containing his passport, currency, etc. He left it on the back seat when he got down to buy something, confident that it would be safe under the watchful eye of the trusted driver. Distractors operate in pairs. One guy came and engaged the driver in a friendly conversation, and the other guy gently opened the rear door on the other side and made away with the briefcase. You can imagine the extreme distress caused to my friend who was to go to the US for an important business meeting.

It all happened in under a minute. Remember the nursery rhyme “Jack be nimble, Jack be quick”? It is related to the famous English pirate Black Jack, who lived in the late 16th century and always succeeded to escape from the authorities. 

Infiltrators are another example. These gain admission into a group with the ulterior objective of gathering sensitive information or compromising the security within the organisation to make it vulnerable to an attack.

Con men or confidence tricksters are another set of sheep-skin guys who gain your confidence and defraud you. Here are some notorious con men:

Victor Lustig (1890-1947) was a notorious conman. He sold the Eiffel Tower twice. In 1925, the Eiffel Tower was rusting and ill-maintained. Lustig took advantage of that and gathered six metal dealers and pretended to be a government official, saying that they could not maintain the tower any more and therefore wanted to sell it. He was so good that he even got a bribe from one of the 6 men to sell it to him.

Charles Ponzi (1882-1949) You are familiar with Ponzi schemes and how millions of people worldwide have lost millions of dollars. Well, the scheme was named after Charles Ponzi who promised his clients 50% profit within 45 days and 100% profit in 90 days, He earned over a million dollars, but his scheme fell through and he died in penury.

Charles Sobhraj (1944) is another kind of conman. His main weapon was gaining the trust of others. He would rescue them from a situation he himself created and then either scammed them or murdered them. Charles evaded arrest many times. He used as many as 10 stolen passports when he was on the run. He became a celebrity in the eyes of the media. Currently, he is serving a second life sentence in Nepal.

My wife and I were walking towards Musee D'Orsay in Paris and an old lady quite well-dressed came up to us and held out what seemed like a gold ring and asked us in halting English if the ring was ours. We said ‘No’ and quickly moved away, sensing that it may be some kind of entrapment. Later when we checked with someone, we were told that had we said yes and taken the ring some men would appear from nowhere and accuse us of assaulting an old woman and robbing her gold ring. They would then extract a sizeable amount to let go.

Then there are some who tell you a sob story to extract something out of you. I've been targeted, and have I learned a lesson? No, says my wife. On that confessional, let me end this post and wish you all well. Stay safe and be away from black sheep and those in sheep skin.

Keep your antenna up to detect unsolicited overtures. Remember, “Text without context is usually pretext.”

Cheers!