Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Verb Phrase 112. The verb phrase today is
rip off. All right. We actually have three meanings and we're going to give
three examples to rip-off. It is very, very common. We use it for a lot of things.
Let's look at the first one usually just means to steal. We could say somebody
ripped somebody off. It means somebody stole something from somebody or to cheat or
swindle. You know kind of a similar meaning but yet a little different. We
could say somebody ripped somebody off by cheating them. They may not have
literally stole something from them but they they deceived them or cheated
them in some way. Number three to plagiarize shamelessly either like copy
somebody's work or take their work and use your own name for it.
Shamelessly copy. Yeah. To plagiarize or shamelessly copy something from someone.
So we might say somebody ripped off somebody else's work in that sort of
sense. All right. Let's look at an example number one. That shoplifter...
remember a shoplifter that is somebody who usually steals things from stores. That
shoplifter ripped off that vendor. You know maybe a street vendor of selling
something. He took some items while the vendor was distracted. So he ripped
him off. In this case, this directly means steal. He stole some items from that
street vendor maybe. Good let's look at number two. In 2016 Wells Fargo admitted
to ripping off its customers by opening thousands of unauthorized accounts for
customers and then charging them for fees on these accounts. So this is
definitely cheating or swindling. So unauthorized means they never... these
people never asked for these accounts to be open. Maybe they had another account
with them but they opened them like a second or a third account and then they
just pretended like they opened that account because they had all their
information from the first account. And they just opened it for them and then
suddenly they contact them. Well you know you know you got to pay a lot of late
fees here. You got a lot of these fees and people like what huh what ?
Do I have another account ? Why I didn't open that one. Well where'd that come
from ? So a lot of people got nervous and just
paid it. But other people were like... Wait what's going on ? And of course it got discovered
that they they really did do that into thousands of them. So that would be an
example of really cheating and swindling. mm-hmm . Okay.
and that number three. That composer accused that rapper of ripping off his
music. Yeah. We hear this all the time in the music world. You know someone you
might get a big hit, and somebody else saying hey you, you that's really ... You
stole my music basically You know, Sometimes they win. Sometimes they're not
sometimes it's closed sometimes it's not. But but yes we could use it that way
meaning like plagiarize and steal and in that sense. Okay anyway, I hope you got it.
Oh it's clear. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.