When I first saw Chicanery as the word of the week my immediate thought was to twist it a bit and have a look at the way chicanes are used in motor racing to slow speeds and add some technical difficulties to the track. Well, that thought lasted 0.13 seconds as I realised that I’d have to be thinking about F1 for about 650 words which is beyond my comprehension.
So it’s back to chicanery. According to the website Wordfoolery:
‘the word history of chicanery is enshrouded in enough mystery to suggest subterfuge. It entered English in the early 1600s in a legal context. It referred to quibbling and sophistry and came from the similar French word chicanerie and the Middle French verb chicaner (to quibble or to pettifog).
How it reached French is a little more debatable. It may be from the Middle Low German schikken (to arrange) or may even be from a golf-like game once played in the Languedoc region of the south of France. Perhaps early French lawyers liked to quibble over points of law as they got in a round before court?’
It is not a commonly used word these days and when it is used it can refer to what I’d call sharp practice in areas such as politics or finance. Clever, often legal manoeuvres designed to gain an advantage, sometimes at the expense of fairness or transparency. It’s not necessarily outright fraud, but definitely on the fringes.
To take things a bit further you could ask yourself:
‘Have you ever encountered a situation where things just felt… off? Not outright illegal, perhaps, but certainly not straightforward or honest?
At its heart, chicanery is about deception, but it’s a specific kind of deception. It’s not the blunt force of outright lying, but rather the artful, clever, and often dishonest talk or behaviour used to trick people. Think of it as a sophisticated form of trickery, often involving wordplay, legalistic loopholes, or subtle manipulation to get what one wants.
What makes chicanery particularly insidious is its subtlety. It often relies on the victim not quite realizing they’re being deceived until it’s too late. It’s the difference between a direct lie and a carefully constructed narrative designed to mislead. The investigation into political corruption, for instance, might reveal not just outright bribery, but a web of political chicanery that obscured the truth for years.
So, the next time you feel like something isn't quite adding up, or someone's arguments seem a little too clever by half, consider the possibility of chicanery. It’s a reminder that while honesty is the best policy, not everyone adheres to it, and sometimes, the most effective way to understand deceit is to recognize the subtle art behind it.’
Now the next question is to what extent can chicanery be acceptable? Because all of the above answer to what you were asking yourself was, in fact, what came out when I entered the words:
“The difference between chicanery and dishonesty AI 300 words” into a website entitled Create AI Blog.
So have I been dishonest or used chicanery in this week’s blog?
I should add I’ve never used AI before.
I think this classes as chicanery:
Epitaph On A Tyrant
Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.
W. H. Auden
Thanks for reading, Terry Q.
