What does it mean to rip off?

A rip-off. Taking advantage of other people's weaknesses or making excuses to ask for money or raise ** points: Why did you knock on my head?

The metaphor takes advantage of someone else's weakness or uses something as an excuse to blackmail.

This paragraph] the origin of the term "extortion".

The origin of the word "rip-off".

In the last years of the Qing Dynasty, opium smuggling was very serious, and smugglers tried to hide opium in order to avoid checkpoints. Water smugglers hide drugs in bamboo boats and transport them by water. One day, a merchant ship sailed to the Shaoxing wharf in Zhejiang, and the anti-smuggling officer took people on board to inspect it, and found no opium in every corner of the cabin.

At this time, a master smoked a long cigarette pipe, walked to the stern of the ship carelessly, and knocked the cigarette ash on the penny of the boat, knocking the penny "beep" loudly, others did not react, but the shipowner was so frightened that his face changed greatly, knowing that the master had seen through the secret, he hurriedly invited the master to the rear cabin, took out a lot of silver and quietly stuffed it to him, and asked him to take care of it, not to knock on the penny again. The master didn't say anything when he got the money, and went off the ship with the anti-smuggling officer. Since then, "extortion" has become synonymous with extortion of property, and it has been used ever since.

There is also a saying: in the mountainous areas of Sichuan, when rich people go into the mountains to burn incense, they ride a kind of sliding rod made of bamboo poles, and the sliding rods are carried by people. The person who walked halfway up the mountain to lift the slide bar knocked on the slide bar and asked for processing money, otherwise he would not lift the person, and the person who took the slide bar had to add money.

There is also a saying: in the last years of the Qing Dynasty, the small amount of business in the market, with copper coins as a unit, the store received the money and then threw it in the money tube made of bamboo poles, and then poured out at night when the bill was settled, which was called "pan money", also called "inventory". At that time, there was a shop in Shanghai, and the owner was very dishonest, and strange customers often raised the price at will.

Whenever the guy was receiving customers, the shopkeeper would knock off the bamboo and signal for a price increase.

What does "rip-off" mean? Why bamboo poles.

This is the native expression of ripping bamboo in English: make somebody pay throught the nose; put the lug on;rob by a trick

Taking advantage of someone else's weakness or some kind of truthful extortion or solicitation.

Extortion refers to taking advantage of others' weaknesses or making excuses to solicit property or raise their standards, taking advantage of others' shortcomings or disadvantageous positions, and profiting from them.

In the past, the transport workers used bamboo poles, they put the hard-earned money in exchange for silver dollars, copper dollars in the bamboo poles that do not leave their hands for a moment, the heads, bullies come, as long as they knock on the bamboo poles, they will know how much they earn a day, this is the origin of the proverb "knocking bamboo poles" that has been used all over the world.