Oneliner plain ruby, it works only with ruby > 1.9.x:
1.9.3p0 :002 > h = {:a => 1, :b => 2}
=> {:a=>1, :b=>2}
1.9.3p0 :003 > h.tap { |hs| hs.delete(:a) }
=> {:b=>2}
Tap method always return the object on which is invoked...
Otherwise if you have required active_support/core_ext/hash (which is automatically required in every Rails application) you can use one of the following methods depending on your needs:
? ~ irb
1.9.3p125 :001 > require 'active_support/core_ext/hash' => true
1.9.3p125 :002 > h = {:a => 1, :b => 2, :c => 3}
=> {:a=>1, :b=>2, :c=>3}
1.9.3p125 :003 > h.except(:a)
=> {:b=>2, :c=>3}
1.9.3p125 :004 > h.slice(:a)
=> {:a=>1}
except uses a blacklist approach, so it removes all the keys listed as args, while slice uses a whitelist approach, so it removes all keys that aren't listed as arguments. There also exist the bang version of those method (except! and slice!) which modify the given hash but their return value is different both of them return an hash. It represents the removed keys for slice! and the keys that are kept for the except!:
1.9.3p125 :011 > {:a => 1, :b => 2, :c => 3}.except!(:a)
=> {:b=>2, :c=>3}
1.9.3p125 :012 > {:a => 1, :b => 2, :c => 3}.slice!(:a)
=> {:b=>2, :c=>3}