It took me a bit of digging to learn this just a few months ago.

I was occupied when I saw this the other day. As I had only a phone, I didn't reply. It wasn't worth the effort. The term has some history, with different meanings depending on the era and context.

The acronym used today is whitewashing the origin. Like all sorts of things, this one had a bit of a racist background.

The term comes from modifying automobiles imported from Asia. The derogatory term for them was 'rice burner'. This was quite commonly used in the US. There was still a lot of latent animosity, left over from WWII.

People would modify these vehicles, just like people have modified all the other vehicles out there. Though this started with bikes instead of cars, that's likely because Japanese bikes were introduced before the massive wave of cars was introduced.

This turned into 'ricing'. That too can be denigrating, as it often refers to the modifications being done poorly. In that case, it's not the race of the owner or the builder, but the perceived quality of the modifications.

To give some clarity, these imported vehicles weren't high-quality vehicles. Today, we can get some reliable, sporty, comfortable, utilitarian, etc automobiles from Asia.

Decompressing the above paragraph can be difficult...

The 'politically correct' way to say it would be to say that the Asian importers (Japan, at the time) didn't understand the American automobile market. That's true, but it's also true to say that they sold the same crappy stuff to their countrymen. It's okay to say that they made some really crappy automobiles.

That has since changed. There are a bunch of cars produced around the globe, and quite a few of them are pretty good.

But... Well, back in that era, it was all about the 'rice burner' pejorative.

The good news is that the phrase is not only no longer commonly used, it likely wouldn't make any sense to a younger person. That's a good thing, or so I think...

And, well, now you see why I didn't want to write this while using a phone.

Hmm... I decided to do some quick fact checks before hitting the post reply button. There's this: