At least one of them made out like a bandit tho...
assuming one of them actually did something wrong tho...
Well, the jury is still out on that imho. It seems calling 'shill' in this place is like yelling 'fire' at an apathy convention.
Shill
A person engaged in covert advertising. The shill attempts to spread buzz by personally endorsing the product in public forums with the pretense of sincerity, when in fact he is being paid for his services.
The "covert" attribute is not in the normal definition. Why didn't you give us a link to your dictionary?
Here the one to mine: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shill
Quote
to act as a spokesperson or promoter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shill
Wikipedia/UrbanDictionary vs Merriam Webster? What's next, KnowYourMeme vs Britannica?
"Shill" often connotes deceptive lack of disclosure, but only compensation to the endorser is required to meet the definition.
Connotation is not definition.
Webster's not good enough for ya? Fine...
Try OED: "a megamillionaire who makes more money as a shill for corporate products than he does for playing basketball"
Obviously the shill in that example cannot be covert about his infamous corporate compensation.
QED you got rekt son.
Arguing with me about English is as silly and futile as arguing with gmax about Bitcoin internals.
Well maybe not futile, as both create a teachable moments.
The fact there is an entire article on wikipedia that differs from the dictionary definition tells us the word has acquired as secondary meaning within the context of online discourse. Expect to see that included as dictionaries are revised.
Wow, an "entire" article? Not just a half or otherwise partial article? I'm impressed!
Putting in a superfluous puff word like "entire" really makes you sound conclusive, convincing, and not desperate at all.
If you care to check OED and Webster, you'll find they subsume your "entire" Wiki entry by including the deceit-connotated definition along with the broader compensation-only one.
Yes, sometimes connotation does eventually become definition. But not always exclusively, and not today.
And the linguistic drift often goes the other direction. As in this case, where your fact-free armchair etymology is backwards. The original definition did necessarily involve deceit, but time passed and a radial definition only requiring compensation replaced the classical. The dwindling of carnivals and new age of explicitly compensated celebrity endorsements (Bill Cosby the Jello pudding shill, etc.) played some role in modern usage, as reflected in OED's example.
QED you got rekt son. I hope you are enjoying this teachable moment.
