Cheater

Cheater (pronounced chee-ter)

(1) A person who cheats.

(2) A device or component used to evade detection of non-compliance with rules or regulations (such as the (Dieselgate) mechanical and electronic devices used by Volkswagen and others to cheat emissions testing programmes (usually as a modifier).

(3) Slang for eyeglasses or spectacles (archaic).

(4) In mechanical repair, an improvised breaker bar made from a length of pipe and a wrench (spanner), usually used to free screws, bolts etc proving difficult to remove with a ratchet or wrench alone; any device created ad-hoc to perform a task not using the approved or designated tools.

1300-1350: From the Middle English cheater from cheat, from cheten, an aphetic variant of acheten & escheten, from the Old French eschetour, escheteur & escheoiter, from the noun; it displaced native Old English beswican.  The -er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, probably borrowed from the Latin -ārius.  The adoption was reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant was -our), from the Latin -(ā)tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  The suffix was added to a person or thing that does an action indicated by the root verb, thereby forming the agent noun.  The noun cheatery is now rare, existing only in old texts.  Escheat refers to the right of a government to take ownership of estate assets or unclaimed property, most often when an individual dies without making a will and with no heirs.  In common law, the theoretical basis of escheat was that (1) all property has a recognized owner and (2) if no claimants to ownership exists or can be identified, ownership reverts to the King (in modern terms the state).  However, in some circumstances escheat rights can also be granted when assets are held to be bona vacantia (unclaimed or lost property).

The original sense was of the "royal officer in charge of the king's escheats," and was a shortened form of escheater, agent noun from escheat.  The meaning “someone dishonest; a dishonest player at a game” emerged in the 1530s as the Middle English chetour, a variant of eschetour following the example of escheat +‎ -er which evolved in English in the modern form cheater (cheat + -er).

Heav'n has no rage, like love to hatred turn'd, nor Hell a fury like a woman scorn'd. William Congreve, The Mourning Bride (1697).

Cheater cars are a frequent sight on several social media platforms, posted presumably by impressed spectators rather than victims or perpetrators.  Techniques and artistry vary but there does seem to be a trend whereby the more expensive the car, the larger and more lurid will be the lettering.  Red, pink and fuchsia appear the colours of choice except where the automotive canvas is red; those artists adorn mostly in black or white.  Hell also hath no fury like a woman cheated upon.

Politicians are notorious liars and cheaters, some even cheerfully admitting it (usually when safely in their well-provided for retirement) but in the privacy of their diaries, they’ll often happily (and usually waspishly) admit it of others.  Although he has a deserved reputation for telling not only lies but big lies, no one has ever disputed Joseph Goebbels’ (1897–1945; Reich Minister of Propaganda 1933 to 1945) assessment of a fellow cabinet member, foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946; Minister of Foreign Affairs 1938-1945) of whom he said “He bought his name, married his money and cheated his way into power”.

Guilty as sin.  Oliver Schmidt (b 1969; inmate number 09786-104 in US Federal, York Township, Michigan) received a seven year sentence for his involvement in the Volkswagen Dieselgate scandal.  Herr Schmidt (right) is pictured here receiving a Ward’s “Best Engine” award in 2015.

Volkswagen certainly gave cheating a bad name and in May 2022 the company announced the latest out-of-court settlement would be Stg£ 193 million (US$242 million) to UK regulators, following the Aus$125 million (US$87 million) imposed by the Federal Court of Australia.  To date, Dieselgate has cost the company some US$34 billion and some criminal cases remain afoot.

Smokey Yunick’s 1966 Chevrolet Chevelle #13 which some alleged was a 7:8 or 15:16 rendition, here aligned against a grid with a stock body.

In simpler, happier times, cheating was sometimes just part of the process and was something of a game between poacher and gamekeeper.  In the 1960s, NASCAR racing in the US was a battle between scrutineers amending their rule-book as cheating was detected and teams scanning the same regulations looking for loopholes and anomalies.  The past master at this cheating was Smokey Yunick (1923–2001), a war-time bomber pilot whose ever-fertile imagination seemed never to lack some imaginative idea that secured some advantage while remaining compliant with the letter of the law (at least according to his interpretation).  His cheats were legion but probably the most celebrated (and there would have been judges who would have agreed this one was legitimate) concerned his interpretation of the term “fuel tank capacity”.  NASCAR specified the maximum quantity of fuel which could be put in a tank but said nothing about the steel fuel line running from tank to engine so Smokey replaced the modest ½ inch (12.5 mm) tube with one 11 feet (3.6 m) long and two inches (50 mm) wide, holding a reputed 5 gallons (19 litres) of gas.  That was his high-tech approach.  Earlier he’d put an inflated basketball into an oversized fuel tank before the car was inspected by scrutineers and when they filled the tank, it would appear to conform to regulations; these days it’d be called “inflategate”.  After passing inspection, Ynuick would deflate the ball, pull it out and top-up his oversized tank for the race.  Pointing out there was nothing in the rules about basketballs didn’t help him but did lead to the rule about a maximum “fuel tank capacity”, hence the later 11 foot-long fuel line.

NASCAR's letter of approval.

Yunick’s 1966 Chevrolet Chevelles were different from the stock models but by the mid 1960s, all NASCAR’s stock cars were.  The difference was certainly perceptible to the naked eye and an urban legend arose that it was a 7:8 (some said 15:16) scale version.  The body’s external dimensions were however those of a stock Chevelle although the body was moved back three inches for better weight distribution, the floor was raised and the underside was smoothed out to improve the aerodynamics.  For the same reason the bumpers were fitted flush with the fenders.  The first car passed inspection (after making the modifications decreed by NASCAR) and took pole position at the 1967 Daytona 500.  Yunick built another imaginative Chevelle for the 1968 race but it never made it past inspection.