# Where was this ripped off from?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-was-this-ripped-off-from/128155
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 12, 2002, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-was-this-ripped-off-from/128155 "2002-09-12T20:55:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 19
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@The\_Universe\_Lashes\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Universe_Lashes_Out)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2002, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-was-this-ripped-off-from/128155/1 "2002-09-12T20:55:42Z")
The student paper today put in a joke article that I know I’ve seen somewhere before. I thought it was from the Onion, but I couldn’t find it there. And Google was of no help. So take a look at [this](http://www.alligator.org/edit/detours/issues/02-fall/current/nu.html) and tell me where it came from, so I can send a nasty letter to them.
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### Author:  [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2002, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-was-this-ripped-off-from/128155/2 "2002-09-12T21:28:25Z")
Well, I entered some of the phrases from the article (“The nu-metal world was rocked by scandal”, “Gothkitty’s Dungeon of Poetry”), in quotes at google, and turned up nothing.
Of course they could have changed several of the details/names, but I tried several phrases.
My guess is that it only reads exactly like an _Onion_ article. It reminds me in particular of one about how children of divorced parents are responsible for most of the nation’s bad poetry, but certainly doesn’t plagiarize it.
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### Author:  [@TheeGrumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheeGrumpy)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2002, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-was-this-ripped-off-from/128155/3 "2002-09-13T00:38:37Z")
Watch those prepositions! It should be: “From where was this ripped off?”
Er, I mean, “From where off was this ripped?” Or something.
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### Author:  [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2002, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-was-this-ripped-off-from/128155/4 "2002-09-13T01:50:29Z")
It would be ironic if they ripped off an article about plagiarism.
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### Author:  [@Fatman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fatman)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2002, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-was-this-ripped-off-from/128155/5 "2002-09-13T02:40:12Z")
[http://www.mcps.k12.md.us/schools/ms.html](http://www.mcps.k12.md.us/schools/ms.html)
has a list of the middle schools in Bethesda, MD where
the little girl is supposed to be from. The article says
she is from GRANT Middle School. There isn’t one in
that County.
That is one clue the story is bogus.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2002, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-was-this-ripped-off-from/128155/6 "2002-09-13T03:12:15Z")
Nobody’s disputing that the article is a joke, **Fatman**. It’s just a question of whose joke it is.
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### Author:  [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2002, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-was-this-ripped-off-from/128155/7 "2002-09-13T11:13:10Z")
\*\*It should be: “From where was this ripped off?”
Er, I mean, “From where off was this ripped?” Or something.\*\*
I believe you mean _"Whence_ was this off-rip’t?"
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### Author:  [@BillyBobMcCrury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BillyBobMcCrury)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2002, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-was-this-ripped-off-from/128155/8 "2002-09-13T11:26:12Z")
“This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.” - Winston Churchill.
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### Author:  [@Stana\_Claus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stana_Claus)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2002, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-was-this-ripped-off-from/128155/9 "2002-09-13T12:38:40Z")
Try “Off from where was this ripped?”. Get that preposition placement right, dammit! 😃
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### Author:  [@Joe\_Cool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joe_Cool)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2002, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-was-this-ripped-off-from/128155/10 "2002-09-13T13:42:39Z")
“Is that the guy off in whose trailer they were whacking?”
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### Author:  [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2002, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-was-this-ripped-off-from/128155/11 "2002-09-13T14:13:32Z")
Well, I’ve seen it somewhere too, Howie, or something awfully similar, but it’s possible it’s just making the rounds of the blogs and e-zines and stuff, and nobody really knows where it came from.
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### Author:  [@The\_Universe\_Lashes\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Universe_Lashes_Out)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2002, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-was-this-ripped-off-from/128155/12 "2002-09-13T20:00:55Z")
See, I’d think if it were making the rounds on blogs and zines, it would show up on Google. And in the Alligator, it said it was by a member of their staff, and I know this isn’t true unless it was written by him somewhere else first. And even then shouldn’t they note that? Seems like plagarism to me, and I really want to call them on it, I just don’t have any proof.
By the way, this paper also blew me off (off I was blown by this paper?) when I tried to correct them about the “more people are killed by falling coconuts than shark attacks” thing. I even sent them Cecil’s [column](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/020719.html) on the subject, and they didn’t care. Some paper, huh?
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### Author:  [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2002, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-was-this-ripped-off-from/128155/13 "2002-09-13T20:59:33Z")
Well, maybe this “Sam Heath” just did a riff on the basic idea, so it doesn’t really count as “plagiarism” as such, the way Terry Brooks did a riff on LOTR and called it “Sword of Shannara” and there wasn’t much the Tolkien estate could do about it.
And maybe it was just the basic joke–“metal band confesses stealing lyrics from Tween”–that I remember seeing somewhere else.
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### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2002, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-was-this-ripped-off-from/128155/14 "2002-09-13T23:43:52Z")
I definitey read this before and it was fairly recently. I don’t think it was the Onion. I’ll try to remember where.
Haj
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### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2002, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-was-this-ripped-off-from/128155/15 "2002-09-13T23:47:49Z")
It was in [this post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=2428935&highlight=soott#post2428935) from the SDMB!!!
Haj
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### Author:  [@pesch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pesch)
#### Post date: [September 14, 2002, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-was-this-ripped-off-from/128155/16 "2002-09-14T01:10:31Z")
Damn! Only took five days, too!
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### Author:  [@red\_dragon60](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/red_dragon60)
#### Post date: [September 14, 2002, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-was-this-ripped-off-from/128155/17 "2002-09-14T05:24:05Z")
Sam Heath, who wrote the SDMB thing, apparently is in a band called Ersatz Glow, and he posts here under the name Ersatz Schmoe. So he really just posted his own thing, polished it up, and submitted it to the paper. Go from the link in his profile.
No plagarism here folks, move along.
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### Author:  [@The\_Universe\_Lashes\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Universe_Lashes_Out)
#### Post date: [September 14, 2002, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-was-this-ripped-off-from/128155/18 "2002-09-14T16:36:50Z")
That would seem to explain it. I guess the people here do such a good job writing fake Onion stories that I get them confused with the real ones. I’ll be gotdammit.
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### Author:  [@Blue\_Heeler\_of\_Science](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Heeler_of_Science)
#### Post date: [September 14, 2002, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-was-this-ripped-off-from/128155/19 "2002-09-14T17:11:14Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by TheeGrumpy \*
> \*\*Watch those prepositions! It should be: “From where was this ripped off?”
>
> Er, I mean, “From where off was this ripped?” Or something. \*\*
Don’t be silly, there is no such _rule_ of grammar.
To quote Churchill’s reply to an ignorant editor: “That is an absurdity up with which I will not put.”