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#1 2008-08-30 00:52:16

Dixon Wragg
Eggcornista
From: Cotati, California
Registered: 2008-07-04
Posts: 1375

Meaning of "rip off"

I first heard the slang phrase “rip off” around 1970, give or take a year or so. The first time I heard it, my friend Duke used it as a verb to describe killing someone. The imagery seemed intuitively clear: to “rip someone off” the planet (i.e., to snatch them away from life—to kill them).

Since then, the verb “rip off” and the noun “ripoff” have been pretty much universally understood as referring to stealing, not killing. My question is this: Have any of you ever heard that term used to mean killing? Is it possible that it started out meaning that but got its meaning changed early on? Or perhaps my friend Duke simply misunderstood the meaning when he first added the term to his vocabulary?

I’d also be interested to know how old the term is.

Dixon

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#2 2008-08-30 08:28:29

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: Meaning of "rip off"

Always been stealing for me, for as long as I can remember. Not pilfering, not physical robbery, but brazen theft, often carried out through deceit, pretending to offer a service but not doing anything useful, taking money for some purpose and then absconding with it. I can use it with the goods stolen as direct object, but almost always it is the victim, the person affected by the theft.


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#3 2008-09-02 09:15:43

nilep
Eggcornista
Registered: 2007-03-21
Posts: 291

Re: Meaning of "rip off"

Dixon Wragg wrote:

Is it possible that it started out meaning that [‘to kill’] but got its meaning changed early on?
...
I’d also be interested to know how old the term is.

from the Oxford English Dictionary:

rip, _v_2
...
6. to rip off. slang (orig. U.S.). Cf. also RIP-OFF n. a. To steal; to embezzle.
1967 Trans-Action Apr. 7 The hustler ‘burns’ people for money, but he also ‘rips off’ goods for money; he thieves, and petty thieving is always a familiar hustle. 1971 It 4-18 Nov. 3/5 An analysis of 800 documents ripped off from the Pennsylvania FBI office. 1972 National Observer (U.S.) 27 May 12/2 Bank robbery? It’s only Establishment money that’s being ripped off.
...
b. To exploit financially; to cheat or defraud; to rob; to deceive.
1971 Frendz 21 May 16/4 The young people are well aware that they are being ripped off by these parasites, and, quite naturally, think that the visiting musicians are on the side of the promoters. 1973 Black World Jan. 33/1 Individuals within the group felt that there were too many instances of their singly being ‘ripped off’ and exploited as Black artists.
...

The earliest citation under rip-off n. (and a.) is from 1970: the Manchester Guardian glosses rip-offs as ‘thieves’.

So the original meaning seems to relate to stealing rather than murder, and the term seems to have originated in the late 1960s in the USA.

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#4 2008-09-02 18:10:20

Dixon Wragg
Eggcornista
From: Cotati, California
Registered: 2008-07-04
Posts: 1375

Re: Meaning of "rip off"

nilep wrote:

So the original meaning seems to relate to stealing rather than murder, and the term seems to have originated in the late 1960s in the USA.

Thanks, nilep! Late 1960’s is about the time I first heard it in Duke’s house in St. Joseph Michigan. As young freeks (what outsiders called “hippies”), we were among the first to adopt that slang term, among many others (although much of our slang was actually appropriated from the black community).

Sorry you had to do my “legwork” by consulting the OED, nilep. One of these days I’ll get out of poverty and buy myself an OED!

Dixon

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