Trying to Understand the Lexical Baggage of "gypped" or "jipped"
Today, being the 30th day of January in the fresh new year of 2020, I, a recently graduated student, was informed by another recently out of college student that I was offending the Roma people for uncaringly using the term “jipped” when discussing the ever-so enlightening philosophy of game companies using battle passes and loot boxes for free to play or whole package purchasable games and was then ganged-up on by other peers for using such vulgar and politically incorrect language. However that is a discussion for another platform. The main question being, “was I incentive for using the term ‘jipped’, am I simply uninformed and they are trying to help me, or are they in the wrong for using out dated and improperly placed prejudice in the word”?
To answer this, I delved into the annals of Google searches that yielded mixed results. The most prominent and widely accepted opinion being that “gypped” or using any term in relation to "“Gypsy” is in fact offensive because of the ethnically and culturally complicated people who prefer to be referred to as Roma now. To quickly summarize the systemic and long running racism against a previously nomadic people would do them injustice and can not be be properly explained in this context. For the sake of this argument, just understand that the people who identify as Roma were wrongly persecuted against for unjust and hateful reasons. So yes, this side of the argument has a foundation in reason. However it is also important to note that none of the sources for this perspective came from people who considered themselves Roma. Instead they all reference a mysterious selection of Roma they know who still consider it offensive and thus they too feel offended for Roma when they here these terms thrown around with reckless abandon.
Next I sought to answer the self reflecting question of “Am I uninformed and are they trying to help me”?. So I thought back to what I was thinking when I typed “jipped”. In my mind, I defined it as unjust robbery or unnecessary greed by an entity with plenty of money. With this in mind a proper definition had to be found. Unfortunately there are a number of “correct” definitions depending on the source. Merriam Webster dictionary defines “gypped” as “informal, now sometimes offensive : CHEAT”. Okay, that lines up with what they were saying, but not how I was informed to define it. For some background, I was raised with an admit-tingly non-traditional vocabulary by a native English speaking, American born father and an English learned, immigrated mother who learned from a teacher, whom was from England, at a catholic school. Surely their years of experience could not have left this important issue unchecked even with scarce use. This lead me to the next definition, by Lexico from Oxford which states “jipped” with the same spelling I used, is defined as “to cheat or swindle (someone)” with no indication or use as an insult or slur even when used in an informal setting. Here I found where the disconnect in understanding happened; there are two different spellings and thus two different origins for “gypped” and “jipped”. Gypped, referencing the slur gypsy to refer to a discriminated populace across mainland Europe starting in the 1750’s and jipped which emerged a century later during the 1870’s, in a different cultural environment (England), referencing “perhaps from obsolete gippo ‘menial kitchen servant’, originally denoting a man's short tunic, from obsolete French jupeau”.
So there we have it. Two different words, with two different spellings and two different origins resulting in similar, yet contrasting meanings and contexts. So if you ever find yourself in a predicament like this then ask yourself these questions: 1) Did you unconsciously spell it gypped or jipped? and 2) Was there hate and scorn within the context of its use, particularly aimed at a person or culture?
Works Referenced:
https://www.businessinsider.com/offensive-phrases-that-people-still-use-2013-11
https://www.defectiveyeti.com/archives/000648.html
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/150468/is-jipped-a-politically-incorrect-word
https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/gyp
https://lifehacker.com/these-words-and-phrases-have-racist-origins-1823042643
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gyp
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/12/30/242429836/why-being-gypped-hurts-the-roma-more-than-it-hurts-you
https://www.thoughtco.com/terms-many-dont-know-are-racist-2834522