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snake oil
(redirected from Snake-oil)

   Also found in: Idioms, Wikipedia 0.02 sec.

A product that has been proven to not live up to the vendor's marketing hype. The term comes from the 1800s in which elixirs and potions of all kinds, even ones that supposedly included the oils from snakes, were sold as a cure for everything that ailed a person.


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As much as I would like to paint all those diet-hysteria gurus as snake-oil salesmen cult leaders preaching the tenets of grapefruit this week and Grape Nuts the next, it's not all their fault, either.
Simply put, this movement is nothing more than a snake-oil remedy promoted by people who have no expertise in the educational arena.
Either we become known by families and fellow educators as trusted and experienced resources, or we become the snake-oil salespeople of the 21st century, known for dubious promises, quack tonics, and employing anxiety to hoist our profits.
 
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