#53649
01/24/2002 3:38 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 866
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 866 |
"Ripped Off"
Use it every day but never stopped to wonder about its origin....any ideas?
stales
FYI, this post has been placed via a satellite borne data link our company provides to a gold mine 130km (~85 miles) NE of Kalgoorlie WA. Kalgoorlie is a further 600km (360 miles) E of Perth.Isn't technology marvellous!! Checked into the Board under the guise of testing the line!! Outside air temperature is 40 degrees C - well over 100F. How's winter treating you all?? Will be back to the big smoke in a few days.
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#53650
01/24/2002 4:35 AM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
I first heard rip-off in the 60's, usually hip lingo pertaining to someone getting over on a drug deal, usually pot (selling it short of weight, cutting it with oregano, etc.). Then it rapidly came to mean any kind of conning, stealing, or getting over..."Are you ripping me off?" "He's a real rip-off!" "Man, what a rip-off!" "I just got ripped off!" How, or why, it was coined, I don't know. I do know that ripped or really ripped was another expression for stoned...and then any kind of inebriation. (and I think this missed our list!)
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#53651
01/24/2002 4:38 AM
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Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636 |
But stales, is it a dry heat?[wistful-e]I used to live near the branch office of Hell.(That would be Presidio, Texas.)
I remember walking down a secluded old cobblestone street in a well-to-do neighborhood of Mexico City. In front of us walked two young hooligans and in front of them was an elderly lady. The one hooligan was complaining to the other that it was always the other's turn to snatch purses only if it was a little old lady. I had visions of him "ripping" the purse right "off" her arm. BTW, while they were arguing, the lady entered her courtyard and shut the gate.
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#53652
01/24/2002 2:21 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
[white]a gold mine 130km (~85 miles) NE of Kalgoorlie WA ... Outside air temperature is 40 degrees C - well over 100F[/white]
I was thinking that 40°C was pretty hot for Washington state any time of year, much less January.
And it doesn't matter how dry it is. Ever walk out of an air-conditioned building in Phoenix on a 120° day?
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#53653
01/24/2002 3:57 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 866
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 866 |
Thanks for the input so far on rip off - any further info please?
stales
BTW Apologies for misleading you in the previous post....outside air temp today was 46C, ie 115F. And Consuelo, it IS a dry heat. In my experience tropical/humid areas don't seem to get much higher than 35C.
So Bean, did St Johns reach today's forecast max of -1C? [tongue in cheek e-]
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#53654
01/24/2002 6:32 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
stales
NYC which is far less than tropical has a dozen or so days each year that top 100º (what 38ºC.?) and usually the humidity is up there to match-- triple H days-- Hot, Hazy and Humid. Parts of souther Jersey are worse.. a friend of friend landed in at Philly airport, stepped on the tarmac and felt at home.. Home being Calicutta!
we have had "heat spells" that have lasted 10 or more days, with even the night time temp remaining in the 90º's-- and i am sure that heat and humidity are worse futher south.
and NY's temp is measured in Centeral Park-- but the masonary building act as great big blocks of thermal mass-- soaking up the suns heat all day, and keeping the nights hot too.. so its often a few degrees cooler in the park.
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#53655
01/24/2002 7:28 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear stales: sixty years ago "take for a ride" was gangster lingo for a one-way trip terminated by several percutaneous injections of lead.
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#53656
01/24/2002 7:42 PM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
From my accentless friends'AHD:
Appendix I
Indo-European Roots
ENTRY: reup-
Also reub-.
DEFINITION: To snatch.
Derivatives include bereave, rob, usurp, and bankrupt.
I. Basic form *reub-. rip1, from Flemish rippen, to rip, from Germanic *rupjan.
II. O-grade form *roup-. 1a. reave1, from Old English r afian, to plunder; b. bereave, from Old English ber afian, to take away (be-, bi-, intensive prefix; see ambhi); c. rover2, from Middle Dutch and Middle Low German roven, to rob. a–c all from Germanic *(bi-)raub n. 2a. rob, from Old French rober, to rob; b. rubato, from Italian rubare, to rob. Both a and b from a Romance borrowing from Germanic *raub n, to rob. 3. robe; garderobe, from Old French robe, robe (< “clothes taken as booty”), from Germanic *raub , booty. 4. Suffixed form *roup-tro-. loot, from Sanskrit loptram, booty. 5. ruble, from Old Russian rubiti, to chop, hew, from Slavic *rubje/a-.
III. Zero-grade form *rup-. 1. usurp, from Latin s rp re (< * su-rup-; sus, use, usage, from t , to use), originally “to interrupt the orderly acquisition of something by the act of using,” whence to take into use, usurp. 2. Nasalized zero-grade form *ru-m-p-. rout1, rupture; abrupt, bankrupt, corrupt, disrupt, erupt, interrupt, irrupt, rupicolous, from Latin rumpere, to break. (In Pokorny 2. reu- 868.)
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#53657
01/24/2002 8:00 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Hey, Mav: That's a lovely word "rupicolous".
rupicolous Ecology. of or relating to an organism that lives among or
grows on rocks. Thus, rupicole.
"rubato" another lovely word for criticising violin playing, for instance.Music with some notes arbitrarily lengthened (or shortened) in performance and, often, others correspondingly changed in length; intentionally and temporarily deviating from a strict tempo
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#53658
01/24/2002 8:05 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773 |
My slang dictionary offered no help, but the Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, WW Skeat, touches on it:
RIP, to divide by tearing open, cut open, tear open for searching into. (Scand.) "Rip up griefe;" Spencser, F. Q. i. 7. 39. [It does not seem to be the same word as ME. rippen, used in the Ormulum in the sense of "seize;" this is a variant of ME. ruppen, to rob, Layamon, 10584, and allied rather to G. rupfen, to pluck, than to the present word.]
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#53659
01/24/2002 11:17 PM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
rip
I've also heard the term used frequently without the off when someone's been robbed or hustled..."What a rip!," "Looks like you just got ripped!"
So now that we have a solid and ancient etymology for "rip" in this semantic sense, I wonder when and why the off was added to the phrase. I'm thinkin' mid 20th Century. A-searchin' I will go!....
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#53660
01/25/2002 6:22 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
In addition to all the usages mentioned above, we also understand "He's(totally) ripped" to mean well-muscled, toned, like the (male) models on the covers of fitness magazines. The female fitness models are usually just way too skinny. Usage example: "Between pushups at Taekwondo, and shovelling immense amounts of snow, I like to think that my arms are looking pretty ripped this winter..."  And yes, stales, it's actually colder than usual here (though St. John's doesn't get cold by Prairie standards). It's probably -7°C (+19°F) right now. Just a bit cooler than Australia at this time of year!  Bastard!
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#53661
01/26/2002 12:55 AM
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467 |
I've always assumed meant totally rippled.
TEd
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#53662
01/26/2002 3:57 AM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
Just a bit cooler than Australia at this time of year! Bastard!
You tell em sister! Solidarity as we stand in our mukluks and mittens! Mind you, ya gotta stick together during our winter months – keeps the body from freezing.
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#53663
01/26/2002 3:20 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
From Surfer slang : rip - to surf to the height of one's abilities. To shred, lacerate and dominate. from http://www.skullyrecords.com/surfslang.htmwhich is a fairly good dictionary of Surfer Speak!
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