Name: English Tutor Nick P Word Origins (18) Scalper
Uploaded: 2019-05-03T14:52:49.000Z
Duration: 4 min 17 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hi this is Tutor Nick  P and this is Word Origins 18. The  word origin today is

scalper. Okay. Let's take a look at the meaning of scalper first. A scalper is

Adverbs of degree

someone who buys a ticket to an event believed to be very high in demand and

short in supply. He will often resell the tickets at excessively higher prices.

Yeah. Probably you know,  triple , quadruple whatever he paid. That's why sometimes

you often hear people saying how they hate them or they dislike them. Even

though they still usually able to sell them though. Those people that really

want to see it and they weren't able to get a ticket they might show up at the

at the place,  at the building,  at that event and try to rebuy it. Try to buy one

they're willing to pay these high prices so scalpers can get them. Of

course , this is illegal. You're allowed to resell a ticket for like a cheaper price

or the same price.  I think it depends on the  states. Some states might allow you to

sell for slightly more like maybe 10% more,  but not these excessively higher

prices. So in most places scalping is considered to be illegal.

All right. Let's continue. The origin of this term is believed to have originated

from someone who resold unused portions of railway tickets. Really I never

heard that story before. At one time long distance railway tickets were much

cheaper per mile than tickets for short distances. Therefore if someone bought a

ticket to California and got off halfway in Chicago for example he could resell

the ticket and greatly reduce his cost rather than buying a ticket directly to

Chicago. Yeah. You almost get the ticket for free or for much,  much less. So this

action was considered to be scalping. All right.  Let's continue. At that time,  in the late

1800s scalp  used to have the meaning of a conman

or cheat or a cheater. You don't really use it that way today but at that time

it did. There's also the connection of cutting off the scalp of a defeated

enemy. Yes we see this a lot of cowboy movies. Sometimes Indians did it to

whites.  Whites they did to Indians. We,  we've seen this happen,  but I think I think

this used to be a tradition in some Native American tribes but also you know

unfortunately the Westerners are the the you know the frontiersman they sometimes

did this the Indians too. When they didn't want them around a certain area

or so. Let's continue. So sometimes in Indian custom. This was also done to some

Indians or animals if there was a bounty offered for them. So if they offered some

money you know because maybe they were afraid for them to be around this area

either animals probably dangerous animals or Indians that they might think

more violent rather than you know bringing a whole dead body. Which would

smell and everything else just cut off the scalp.  The Scalp was proof that you

had you know,  I guess killed an Indian or the animal. .

Here the connection to train tickets was you only have part of something. You

only had part of the ticket left,  but you could still get paid. So that's where

they made the connection. That's why they started calling that scalping,  and that's

why today we call it you know,  the , the action is to scalp. The person who does

it is a scalper and you know the action somebody could be scalping. So this is

where it came from. This is the origin of it. Anyway,

I hope you got it and hope you thought it was interesting. Thank you for your