| Author |
Message |
John Holmes
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 4:11 pm
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
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Skitt wrote:
| Quote: | Adrian Bailey rakstija:
"Kate P" wrote:
Is it OK to say "He can't keep his eyes OFF her" instead of "He
can't keep his eyes OFF OF her"?
Of course. "off of" is dialect or slang.
Neither, actually. It's informal. From AHD4:
USAGE NOTE: The compound preposition off of is generally regarded as
informal and is best avoided in formal speech and writing: He stepped
off (not off of) the platform. Off is informal as well when used to
indicate a source: formal style requires I borrowed it from (not off)
my brother.
|
Not necessarily. I think Adrian's charcterisation is more accurate than
your dictionary's. The Australian Oxford says "off of" is non-standard,
and to be avoided. If it isn't regarded as standard everywhere, doesn't
that make it dialectal?
--
Regards
John
for mail: my initials plus those of alt.usage.english
at tpg dot com dot au
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Alan Jones
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 4:19 pm
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
|
|
"Robin Bignall" <docrobin@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:nb5oo0d89dsniv0fg6r8pcg8995bfrunsf@4ax.com...
[...]
| Quote: | "Off of" is pretty much unknown in UK English. I was surprised by
Donna's 1,460,000 Google hits, but on looking into it further, pretty
much all of the ones I saw were either written by Leftpondians or were
false hits such as "IT will fuel the take-off of airline customer
services".
I don't know which part of Britain you're talking about, but 'off of'
was almost universal usage in the Midlands when I was growing up, and
very much frowned upon by our Miss Thistlebottoms.
|
I don't know which part of the UK Midlands Robin is talking about, but "off
of" wasn't used at all in Shropshire when I was a boy. Miss Thistlebottom
(actually Miss Cubey) would certainly have pounced on it, though, as she and
her colleagues did on our various bits of Salopian usage. (I remember being
corrected for using "road" for "way" in such expressions as "That's the best
road to do it" or "Put it that road up".)
I first heard "off of" generally used when I was teaching in Essex, and I
hear it here in Wiltshire - but not from the kind of people who speak RP or
near-RP. So I think it must be both locally dialectal and socially
delimited. What it isn't (as apparently it is in AmE) is standard informal
language of the "Have you got ...?" or "Aren't I?" kind.
Alan Jones. |
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Lars Eighner
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 4:35 pm
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
|
|
In our last episode,
<QG0jd.28654$Fu2.21671@fe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk>, the lovely and
talented Alan Jones broadcast on alt.usage.english:
| Quote: | I first heard "off of" generally used when I was teaching in Essex, and I
hear it here in Wiltshire - but not from the kind of people who speak RP or
near-RP. So I think it must be both locally dialectal and socially
delimited. What it isn't (as apparently it is in AmE) is standard informal
language of the "Have you got ...?" or "Aren't I?" kind.
|
My first thought was that most of these examples are not some
compound preposition "off of," but are legitimate phrasal verbs
plus a prepositional phrase. This doesn't stand up, I see, because
when there is an undoubted phrasal verb, it is perfectly capable of
accepting an object without the "of." Intransitive phrasal verbs
with "off" that I can think of don't go with "of."
--
Lars Eighner -finger for geek code- eighner@io.com http://www.io.com/~eighner/
"The very essence of the creative is its novelty, and hence we have no
standard by which to judge it." --Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person
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Donna Richoux
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 5:21 pm
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
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|
Jess Askin <nospam@dontbother.net> wrote:
| Quote: | "Donna Richoux" <trio@euronet.nl> wrote in message
news:1gmstmd.1td7v704gnmmrN%trio@euronet.nl...
Adrian Bailey <dadge@hotmail.com> wrote:
"Kate P" <abcde@abcde.com> wrote in message
news:S6Rid.28257$OD3.1360318@news20.bellglobal.com...
Is it OK to say "He can't keep his eyes OFF her" instead of "He can't
keep his eyes OFF OF her"?
Of course. "off of" is dialect or slang.
For an amazingly large value of "dialect."
"off of" 5,900,000
"off of" uk 1,460,000
"off of" london 432,000
"off of" "bay area" 79,100
"off of" manhattan 104,000
Did you get this from Google? How do you get it to narrow down to a
particular city? Fess up.
|
It'a little more than an illusion. The number represents web pages that
contain both elements. It's really not very meaningful -- for example,
the occurrence of "off of" could be separated from the occurrence of
"london" by 5,000 lines of text. The text could be written by someone
from Missoula, Montana, talking abour their trip to London. The phrases
could be written by entirely different people. I just wanted to
introduce the idea of geographic variation, and this was a
quick-and-dirty check. I did warn.
Better measures are welcome.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux |
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steve
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 5:34 pm
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
|
|
On Sat, 6 Nov 2004 07:19:34 +0800, John Hatpin wrote
(in article <d32oo0dnbe5ola510s5vcp5f4d1fcj6ct4@4ax.com>):
| Quote: | Areff wrote:
Donna Richoux wrote:
Adrian Bailey <dadge@hotmail.com> wrote:
"Kate P" <abcde@abcde.com> wrote in message
news:S6Rid.28257$OD3.1360318@news20.bellglobal.com...
Is it OK to say "He can't keep his eyes OFF her" instead of "He can't
keep his eyes OFF OF her"?
Of course. "off of" is dialect or slang.
For an amazingly large value of "dialect."
"off of" 5,900,000
"off of" uk 1,460,000
"off of" london 432,000
"off of" "bay area" 79,100
"off of" manhattan 104,000
I know those geographical tests aren't at all scientific, but I was
hoping to find any evidence that it was overwhelmingly limited to the
West Coast use or something. I haven't.
I think "off of" is Standard Universal AmE, but it is (traditionally
regarded as being) appropriate in informal registers only. I believe that
"off of" is generally nonstandard in BrE, or dialectal.
"Off of" is pretty much unknown in UK English. I was surprised by
Donna's 1,460,000 Google hits, but on looking into it further, pretty
much all of the ones I saw were either written by Leftpondians or were
false hits such as "IT will fuel the take-off of airline customer
services".
It's a shame that we can't (yet?) be more specific in Google searches.
|
my mother used it extensivly, so did a number of my teachers, that was in
Bury , however it was over 30 years ago.
steve |
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Django Cat
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 6:05 pm
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
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On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 23:19:34 +0000, John Hatpin
<nospam@brookview.karoo.co.uk> wrote:
| Quote: | Areff wrote:
Donna Richoux wrote:
Adrian Bailey <dadge@hotmail.com> wrote:
"Kate P" <abcde@abcde.com> wrote in message
news:S6Rid.28257$OD3.1360318@news20.bellglobal.com...
Is it OK to say "He can't keep his eyes OFF her" instead of "He can't
keep his eyes OFF OF her"?
Of course. "off of" is dialect or slang.
For an amazingly large value of "dialect."
"off of" 5,900,000
"off of" uk 1,460,000
"off of" london 432,000
"off of" "bay area" 79,100
"off of" manhattan 104,000
I know those geographical tests aren't at all scientific, but I was
hoping to find any evidence that it was overwhelmingly limited to the
West Coast use or something. I haven't.
I think "off of" is Standard Universal AmE, but it is (traditionally
regarded as being) appropriate in informal registers only. I believe that
"off of" is generally nonstandard in BrE, or dialectal.
"Off of" is pretty much unknown in UK English.
|
Que? Dialect your side of the Pennines might not use it, but for the
rest of us it's bog standard.
Django "Get that cat off of the windowsill" Cat |
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Wood Avens
Guest
|
| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 6:27 pm
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
|
|
On Sat, 06 Nov 2004 09:19:44 GMT, "Alan Jones" <atj@blueyonder.co.uk>
wrote:
| Quote: |
"Robin Bignall" <docrobin@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:nb5oo0d89dsniv0fg6r8pcg8995bfrunsf@4ax.com...
I don't know which part of Britain you're talking about, but 'off of'
was almost universal usage in the Midlands when I was growing up, and
very much frowned upon by our Miss Thistlebottoms.
I don't know which part of the UK Midlands Robin is talking about, but "off
of" wasn't used at all in Shropshire when I was a boy. Miss Thistlebottom
(actually Miss Cubey) would certainly have pounced on it, though, as she and
her colleagues did on our various bits of Salopian usage. (I remember being
corrected for using "road" for "way" in such expressions as "That's the best
road to do it" or "Put it that road up".)
I first heard "off of" generally used when I was teaching in Essex, and I
hear it here in Wiltshire - but not from the kind of people who speak RP or
near-RP. So I think it must be both locally dialectal and socially
delimited.
|
Yes. It was common (in both senses), and deprecated by our own Miss
Thistlebottoms, in my primary school in Sarf London fifty years ago.
At my secondary school a mile or so from the primary school, and part
of the Girls Public Day School Trust, it was unknown.
--
Katy Jennison
spamtrap: remove the first two letters after the @ |
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Raymond S. Wise
Guest
|
| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 6:51 pm
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
|
|
"John Holmes" <see sig> wrote in message
news:418c9548$1@dnews.tpgi.com.au...
| Quote: | Skitt wrote:
Adrian Bailey rakstija:
"Kate P" wrote:
Is it OK to say "He can't keep his eyes OFF her" instead of "He
can't keep his eyes OFF OF her"?
Of course. "off of" is dialect or slang.
Neither, actually. It's informal. From AHD4:
USAGE NOTE: The compound preposition off of is generally regarded as
informal and is best avoided in formal speech and writing: He stepped
off (not off of) the platform. Off is informal as well when used to
indicate a source: formal style requires I borrowed it from (not off)
my brother.
Not necessarily. I think Adrian's charcterisation is more accurate than
your dictionary's. The Australian Oxford says "off of" is non-standard,
and to be avoided. If it isn't regarded as standard everywhere, doesn't
that make it dialectal?
|
No. There is no such thing as "Standard English." There are only standard
and nonstandard dialects of English, so that you have "Standard American
English," "Standard British English," and "Standard Australian English," for
example.
There are things which are common to all standard dialects, such as certain
vocabulary. The following comes from the *Dictionary of Caribbean English
Usage,* edited by Richard Allsopp, Oxford: Oxford University Press, (C)
1996. After quoting from a couple of definitions of "Standard English," the
author goes on to say:
[quote]
The problem is that these and similar propositions evidently try but fail to
escape value judgements wholly, the only conclusion that unquestionably
follows from them being the admission that there are several brands of
Standard English in the world--British SE, American SE, Canadian SE,
Caribbean SE, Australian SE, etc. from which it must also unquestionably
follow that each brand must share a substantial part of a core that is
accepted as World English. It is proposed here to call the whole such core
_Internationally Accepted English_ (IAE) (adopting a label already in use by
some Caribbean linguists).
[end quote]
IAE is not itself a dialect, much less a standard dialect. It follows from
this that some usages will be standard in some standard dialects while at
the same time they are nonstandard in other standard dialects: "In hospital"
is standard in Standard British English and nonstandard in American Standard
English, where "in the hospital" is standard.
There is also such a thing as an informal register of the standard dialects.
"Can't" and "don't," for example, are standard usages in informal Standard
American English (and, I'm sure, in some other standard dialects). I've
posted about this before, citing linguist George Philip Krapp as the first
person I know to have written about this concept, in the early 20th century.
I don't believe that modern dictionaries can be counted upon to identify the
informal registers of the standard dialects: Most people turn to the
dictionary to help them with their written English, and that's mainly what
the dictionary editors attempt to help them with. So if a dictionary entry
is labeled "informal," I would not take that to be a guarantee that the item
belongs to informal Standard American English (in the case of an American
dictionary) or to informal Standard British English (in the case of a
British dictionary). Concerning the usage in question, my sense is that
using "off of" in a sentence such as "I borrowed it off of my brother" is
informal, but not part of informal Standard American English while "I got
off of the bus" *is* part of informal Standard American English.
The distinction between informal American English and informal Standard
American English may well become entangled in "value judgements" (or "value
judgments") of the sort discussed in the cite above. But given that some
dictionaries label some usages "informal" which are not so labeled in other
dictionaries, I'd say that the distinction between informal Standard
American English and Standard American English (and the corresponding
pairings in the case of other standard dialects) is *also* entangled in
value judgments.
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com |
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Mike Lyle
Guest
|
| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 7:25 pm
Post subject: "Brand", non-commercial [Was: Re: "off of"] |
|
|
Raymond S. Wise wrote:
[...]
[quote]The following comes from the *Dictionary of
Caribbean English Usage,* edited by Richard Allsopp, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, (C) 1996. [...]> | Quote: |
there are
several brands of Standard English in the world--[...][end quote]
|
I do occasionally use "brand" in this way, but only, I think, with
quotation marks. It can be quite useful, though perhaps many would
find it inappropriate in connotation, or even rather imprecise: I
could make a reasonable argument against it.
But I'm certain I haven't used it like that all my life; and I feel
that I would at first have used it in a faintly jocular mood. The
usage is not recorded in OED1 or the 1933 Supplement.
What's the history?
Mike. |
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Robin Bignall
Guest
|
| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 11:00 pm
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
|
|
On Sat, 06 Nov 2004 09:19:44 GMT, "Alan Jones" <atj@blueyonder.co.uk>
wrote:
| Quote: |
"Robin Bignall" <docrobin@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:nb5oo0d89dsniv0fg6r8pcg8995bfrunsf@4ax.com...
On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 23:19:34 +0000, John Hatpin
nospam@brookview.karoo.co.uk> wrote:
.
[...]
"Off of" is pretty much unknown in UK English. I was surprised by
Donna's 1,460,000 Google hits, but on looking into it further, pretty
much all of the ones I saw were either written by Leftpondians or were
false hits such as "IT will fuel the take-off of airline customer
services".
I don't know which part of Britain you're talking about, but 'off of'
was almost universal usage in the Midlands when I was growing up, and
very much frowned upon by our Miss Thistlebottoms.
I don't know which part of the UK Midlands Robin is talking about,
|
Nottingham, Alan,
| Quote: | but "off
of" wasn't used at all in Shropshire when I was a boy. Miss Thistlebottom
(actually Miss Cubey) would certainly have pounced on it, though, as she and
her colleagues did on our various bits of Salopian usage.
|
I think that its usage came from the parallel with 'get out of'. As
kids, we were continually being told to 'gerroff of' things and
'gerrout of' places. The replacement of the 't' in 'get' with an 'r'
was a characteristic of the local working class dialect. 'Gerrin' the
house, 'gerrup' them stairs.
| Quote: | (I remember being
corrected for using "road" for "way" in such expressions as "That's the best
road to do it" or "Put it that road up".)
We used 'road' for 'way' in exactly the same.. er.. road. |
| Quote: | I first heard "off of" generally used when I was teaching in Essex, and I
hear it here in Wiltshire - but not from the kind of people who speak RP or
near-RP. So I think it must be both locally dialectal and socially
delimited. What it isn't (as apparently it is in AmE) is standard informal
language of the "Have you got ...?" or "Aren't I?" kind.
Agreed. |
--
wrmst rgrds
Robin Bignall
Hertfordshire
England |
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Jess Askin
Guest
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 12:08 am
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
|
|
"Donna Richoux" <trio@euronet.nl> wrote in message
news:1gmts37.18tt2zlmwuppmN%trio@euronet.nl...
| Quote: | Jess Askin <nospam@dontbother.net> wrote:
"Donna Richoux" <trio@euronet.nl> wrote in message
news:1gmstmd.1td7v704gnmmrN%trio@euronet.nl...
Adrian Bailey <dadge@hotmail.com> wrote:
"Kate P" <abcde@abcde.com> wrote in message
news:S6Rid.28257$OD3.1360318@news20.bellglobal.com...
Is it OK to say "He can't keep his eyes OFF her" instead of "He
can't
keep his eyes OFF OF her"?
Of course. "off of" is dialect or slang.
For an amazingly large value of "dialect."
"off of" 5,900,000
"off of" uk 1,460,000
"off of" london 432,000
"off of" "bay area" 79,100
"off of" manhattan 104,000
Did you get this from Google? How do you get it to narrow down to a
particular city? Fess up.
It'a little more than an illusion. The number represents web pages that
contain both elements. It's really not very meaningful -- for example,
the occurrence of "off of" could be separated from the occurrence of
"london" by 5,000 lines of text. The text could be written by someone
from Missoula, Montana, talking abour their trip to London. The phrases
could be written by entirely different people. I just wanted to
introduce the idea of geographic variation, and this was a
quick-and-dirty check. I did warn.
Better measures are welcome.
|
No, that's fine for a rough estimate. V. ingenious. (Except do keep in mind
that there's more than one Bay Area.) |
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Areff
Guest
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 12:08 am
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
|
|
Ben Zimmer wrote:
| Quote: | Hey! You! Get off of my cloud.
|
IIRC(ITLTLIU), some Britics here have claimed that this must have been
intentional Americanism on the part of Messrs Jagger and Richard. Of
course, they famously said that about "Blackburn, Lancashire" (wrt John
Lennon) too. Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
--
Steny '08! |
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Areff
Guest
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 1:41 am
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
|
|
Jess Askin wrote:
| Quote: |
"Donna Richoux" <trio@euronet.nl> wrote in message
news:1gmts37.18tt2zlmwuppmN%trio@euronet.nl...
Better measures are welcome.
No, that's fine for a rough estimate. V. ingenious. (Except do keep in mind
that there's more than one Bay Area.)
|
That's something that residents of the San Francisco Bay Area seem not to
be aware of.
--
Steny '08! |
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Raymond S. Wise
Guest
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 2:58 am
Post subject: Re: "Brand", non-commercial [Was: Re: "off of"] |
|
|
"Mike Lyle" <mike_lyle_uk@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:2v3u6cF2b62enU1@uni-berlin.de...
[quote]Raymond S. Wise wrote:
[...]
The following comes from the *Dictionary of
Caribbean English Usage,* edited by Richard Allsopp, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, (C) 1996. [...]> | Quote: |
there are
several brands of Standard English in the world--[...][end quote]
I do occasionally use "brand" in this way, but only, I think, with
quotation marks. It can be quite useful, though perhaps many would
find it inappropriate in connotation, or even rather imprecise: I
could make a reasonable argument against it.
But I'm certain I haven't used it like that all my life; and I feel
that I would at first have used it in a faintly jocular mood. The
usage is not recorded in OED1 or the 1933 Supplement.
What's the history?
|
*The Century Dictionary,* an American dictionary of 1895, has the following
under the entry for the noun "brand":
From
www.century-dictionary.com
[quote]
*3.* A mark made by burning with a hot iron,
as upon a cask, to indicate the manufacturer
or the quality of the contents, etc., or upon an
animal as a means of identification ; a trade-
mark ; hence, a mark made in other ways than
by burning, as by cutting or painting.--*4.*
Quality or kind, as indicated by a brand : as,
flour of a good _brand._
Any quantity of gunpowder so finished or blended as to
give identical results at proof is termed a _brand,_ and re-
ceives a distinctive number. _Encyc. Brit.,_ XI. 328.
[end quote]
The 1913 Webster's Unabridged has, at
http://machaut.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/WEBSTER.sh?WORD=brand
[quote]
*3.* A mark made by burning with a hot iron, as upon a cask, to designate
the quality, manufacturer, etc., of the contents, or upon an animal, to
designate ownership; -- also, a mark for a similar purpose made in any other
way, as with a stencil. Hence, figurately: Quality; kind; grade; as, a good
brand of flour.
[end quote]
"Figurately" means "figuratively," which, it seems to me, indicates a drift
in meaning from the sense given in the Century.
My 1981 edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate (*Webster's New Collegiate
Dictionary,* G. & C. Merriam Company) has the following entry, which may
represent usage from a decade earlier, because while the edition I have is
copyright 1981, there is a note on the page following the title page,
"Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary principal copyright 1973":
From the entry for the noun "brand":
[quote]
*4 a :* a class of goods identified by name as the product of a single firm
or manufacturer : MAKE *b :* a characteristic or distinctive kind *:*
VARIETY <a lively brand of theater> *c :* BRAND NAME 2
[end quote]
The entry in MWCD11 is identical except that it is missing the reference to
the synonym "variety."
I see that this sense of "brand" is not in the online *Compact Oxford
English Dictionary* at
http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/brand?view=uk
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com |
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Jess Askin
Guest
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 10:08 am
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
|
|
"Areff" <me@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:2v4k6dF2hb24uU1@uni-berlin.de...
| Quote: | Jess Askin wrote:
"Donna Richoux" <trio@euronet.nl> wrote in message
news:1gmts37.18tt2zlmwuppmN%trio@euronet.nl...
Better measures are welcome.
No, that's fine for a rough estimate. V. ingenious. (Except do keep in
mind
that there's more than one Bay Area.)
That's something that residents of the San Francisco Bay Area seem not to
be aware of.
|
Once in a while they hear somebody on TV say "I live in the Bay Area" and it
takes them a minute or so to realize they mean LA (somewhere down there). |
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