rip off papers...

[hitesh70]

Suppose I have removed few articled from news paper. And by remove i mean i tear them. But when he picks up the paper , he asks me that why i ripped of articles or removed the articles. I want to say that those articles where not relevant to his interest. Is this right if I say.

- Those articles would not have interested you.
- You would not have found the articles i ripped off interesting.

I don't know what to say. I am just confused between rip off and tear apart. Which one do you use when you remove a page abruptly from a book ?

 

[Chicken Sandwich]

NOT A TEACHER

I don't think that "rip off" works here. I would use "rip out", at least, that's what comes to mind at this moment. When you say, 'You would not have found the articles I ripped off interesting' it kind of makes me think that you plagiarised these articles.

By the way, always capitalise "I".

 

[Academic Writing]

I agree with Chicken Sandwich. "To rip out" means to remove in the fashion you have described. "To rip off" would mean to steal the ideas in the articles, and that meaning would not fit with your intended meaning of physically tearing out the pages (the verb does fit grammatically in your sentence of course, but it gives the unintended idea of stolen ideas, so it's important to change to "rip out" to avoid saying that you stole them).

"To rip off" has a couple of other meanings as well (e.g., to cheat someone in a financial transaction), but those meanings would not be misinterpreted here.

 

[TheParser]

***** NOT A TEACHER *****


Hello, Hitesh:

If I were you, I might say something such as:

"I did not think that they would interest you, so I have torn out/ cut out certain articles in today's paper. Hope you don't mind!"


HAVE A NICE DAY!

 

[emsr2d2]

***** NOT A TEACHER *****


Hello, Hitesh:

If I were you, I might say something such as:

"I did not think that they would interest you, so I have torn out/ cut out certain articles in today's paper. Hope you don't mind!"


HAVE A NICE DAY!

I agree except that I would say "torn/cut out from" (not "in").