| Author |
Message |
Kate P
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 3:10 am
Post subject: "off of" |
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Is it OK to say "He can't keep his eyes OFF her" instead of "He can't
keep his eyes OFF OF her"?
I have heard the combination "off of" in other contexts. How/when
exactly is "off of" used?
Thank you.
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Adrian Bailey
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 3:39 am
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
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"Kate P" <abcde@abcde.com> wrote in message
news:S6Rid.28257$OD3.1360318@news20.bellglobal.com...
| Quote: | Is it OK to say "He can't keep his eyes OFF her" instead of "He can't
keep his eyes OFF OF her"?
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Of course. "off of" is dialect or slang.
Adrian |
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Donna Richoux
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 4:22 am
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
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Adrian Bailey <dadge@hotmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: | "Kate P" <abcde@abcde.com> wrote in message
news:S6Rid.28257$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.
It turns up in all sorts of constructions. A quick copy and paste:
College turned me off of reading.
It can be reached from several exits off of I-4
members enjoy a discount off of the daily ...
without taking my eyes off of it
cutting the top off of it.
I'm sorry if it pains some of you to read these. Only not really though.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
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Areff
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 5:18 am
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
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Donna Richoux wrote:
| Quote: | Adrian Bailey <dadge@hotmail.com> wrote:
"Kate P" <abcde@abcde.com> wrote in message
news:S6Rid.28257$OD3.1360318@news20.bellglobal.com...
Is it OK to say "He can't keep his eyes OFF her" instead of "He can't
keep his eyes OFF OF her"?
Of course. "off of" is dialect or slang.
For an amazingly large value of "dialect."
"off of" 5,900,000
"off of" uk 1,460,000
"off of" london 432,000
"off of" "bay area" 79,100
"off of" manhattan 104,000
I know those geographical tests aren't at all scientific, but I was
hoping to find any evidence that it was overwhelmingly limited to the
West Coast use or something. I haven't.
|
I think "off of" is Standard Universal AmE, but it is (traditionally
regarded as being) appropriate in informal registers only. I believe that
"off of" is generally nonstandard in BrE, or dialectal.
--
Steny '08! |
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Mark Barratt
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 5:41 am
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
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Areff wrote:
| Quote: | Donna Richoux wrote:
Adrian Bailey <dadge@hotmail.com> wrote:
"Kate P" <abcde@abcde.com> wrote in message
news:S6Rid.28257$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.
|
Maybe, but it seems perfectly natural to me. I get onto a bus,
then I get off of the bus. If I were to get on a bus, then I
might consider getting off it, but I never have, yet.
--
Mark Barratt
Budapest |
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John Hatpin
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 6:19 am
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
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Areff wrote:
| Quote: | Donna Richoux wrote:
Adrian Bailey <dadge@hotmail.com> wrote:
"Kate P" <abcde@abcde.com> wrote in message
news:S6Rid.28257$OD3.1360318@news20.bellglobal.com...
Is it OK to say "He can't keep his eyes OFF her" instead of "He can't
keep his eyes OFF OF her"?
Of course. "off of" is dialect or slang.
For an amazingly large value of "dialect."
"off of" 5,900,000
"off of" uk 1,460,000
"off of" london 432,000
"off of" "bay area" 79,100
"off of" manhattan 104,000
I know those geographical tests aren't at all scientific, but I was
hoping to find any evidence that it was overwhelmingly limited to the
West Coast use or something. I haven't.
I think "off of" is Standard Universal AmE, but it is (traditionally
regarded as being) appropriate in informal registers only. I believe that
"off of" is generally nonstandard in BrE, or dialectal.
|
"Off of" is pretty much unknown in UK English. I was surprised by
Donna's 1,460,000 Google hits, but on looking into it further, pretty
much all of the ones I saw were either written by Leftpondians or were
false hits such as "IT will fuel the take-off of airline customer
services".
It's a shame that we can't (yet?) be more specific in Google searches.
--
John H
Yorkshire, England |
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Nell
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 6:56 am
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
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John Hatpin wrote:
| Quote: | Areff wrote:
Donna Richoux wrote:
Adrian Bailey <dadge@hotmail.com> wrote:
"Kate P" <abcde@abcde.com> wrote in message
news:S6Rid.28257$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. 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.
|
The next step for Google. :-)
I use "off of" and "off" interchangeably, though "off of" has a rather
"demanding" effect to it, as in giving orders.
Nell
Nell |
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Robin Bignall
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 7:09 am
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. 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.
--
wrmst rgrds
Robin Bignall
Hertfordshire
England |
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John Lawler
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 7:30 am
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
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Nell <mildredskidnospam_atall@comcast.net> writes:
| Quote: | John Hatpin writes:
Areff writes:
Donna Richoux writes:
Adrian Bailey <dadge@hotmail.com> writes:
"Kate P" <abcde@abcde.com> writes
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.
The next step for Google. :-)
I use "off of" and "off" interchangeably, though "off of" has a rather
"demanding" effect to it, as in giving orders.
|
In the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE), at
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/eli/micase/index.htm, a 1.7 megaword corpus
collected here at UM around the turn of the century, there are 45 hits for
'off of', which is a pretty good ratio as these things go.
I have to say that:
a) it is really quite common and natural in AmEng;
b) I remember being taught in school that it was horrid
to say or (especially) write it -- one should simply
say "off", instead of "off of". Of course this didn't
stop anybody from saying it.
MICASE, by the way, is free and can be searched or browsed on the Web; it's
a nicely designed example of a corpus (I'm even in there). Note that MICASE
is, by design, *spoken* English, though it's all transcribed (and is now
being tagged, and the sound files are now on line).
People living in Europe can access the British National Corpus at
http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/, the biggest and best in the world (100
megawords, both spoken and written), for RightPondian equivalences.
You can find *lots* more corpora on myu colleague David Lee's Corpus
Bookmarks page, http://www.devoted.to/corpora.
Google is of course much bigger, but it's not really designed for KWIC
searches. Corpora are.
-John Lawler http://www.umich.edu/~jlawler Michigan Linguistics
----------------------------------------------------------------
"A written word is mummified until someone imparts life to it by
transposing it mentally into the corresponding spoken word."
-- Otto Jespersen |
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Skitt
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 7:52 am
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
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Adrian Bailey rakstija:
| Quote: | "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.
--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/ |
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John Hatpin
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 8:21 am
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
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Robin Bignall wrote:
| Quote: | On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 23:19:34 +0000, John Hatpin
nospam@brookview.karoo.co.uk> wrote:
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".
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.
|
Strange - I didn't recognise "off of" as being a British phrase at
all, but then I haven't spent very much time in the Midlands. Is it
still widely used there?
I'm from East Yorkshire, and our Miss Thistlebottoms were concerned
about other phrases we used.
--
John H
Yorkshire, England |
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Jess Askin
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 8:31 am
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
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"Donna Richoux" <trio@euronet.nl> wrote in message
news:1gmstmd.1td7v704gnmmrN%trio@euronet.nl...
| Quote: | 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. |
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Areff
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 9:08 am
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
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John Hatpin wrote:
| Quote: | Areff wrote:
Donna Richoux wrote:
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.
|
"off of" site:.uk 111,000
--
Steny '08! |
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R H Draney
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 1:01 pm
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
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Mark Barratt filted:
| 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.
|
Frankie Valli is anything but West Coast, and that pair of prepositions should
have made you think of his line "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You"...if you'll
recall, I came in a few months ago with an MP3 of a singer in Taiwan who felt
the line had to be "can't take my eyes over you", and sang it accordingly...I
suggested at the time that he might have made the substitution because someone
taught him that "off of" was wrong....
| Quote: | 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.
Maybe, but it seems perfectly natural to me. I get onto a bus,
then I get off of the bus. If I were to get on a bus, then I
might consider getting off it, but I never have, yet.
|
Sometimes I board a bus...sometimes I get on a bus, or get onto a bus, or even
get up onto a bus...it's therefore not unheard of for me to get down from off of
the bus....r |
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Ben Zimmer
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 2:48 pm
Post subject: Re: "off of" |
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R H Draney wrote:
| Quote: |
Donna Richoux wrote:
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.
Frankie Valli is anything but West Coast, and that pair of prepositions should
have made you think of his line "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You"...
|
Not to mention these lines...
Lay off of them blue suede shoes.
Hey! You! Get off of my cloud.
Ma, take this badge off of me. I can't use it any more.
Get up off of that thing, and dance till you feel better. |
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