Language Rantypants

[changeling]

I'd like to say a little something about one of my least favourite language quirks out there. Folks, meet "off of". It's a lazy construction, and it doesn't actually mean anything.

You didn't "base my project off of this idea I had". You base it ON an idea. It's like saying that your house is "based off of the ground". It isn't. It's based ON the ground. You don't sit off of a chair. You don't serve your meal off of some plates. The cat did not sit off of the mat. It's ON the chair, ON the plates, ON the mat.

Similarly, you didn't "get this off of some guy I know". You got it FROM some guy.

Prepositions. They are your friend. Don't beat them up and leave them in an alley for dead.

Comments

[youraugustine.livejournal.com]

*chinhand* Can I make you go "argh" at me by saying that I actually mean something different if I'm saying "I base my project off an idea that I had" and "I base my project on an idea that I had"? It's a subtle difference, but it's there, and largely has to do with how much relationship the thing has, conceptually and in my head, to what the thing that's either off-of or on.

For instance, the entire world of Winter Leaving is based on our real-world history. On the other hand, Wind of Ashes is an idea that's off the usual fantasy stereotypes. In the first case, the foundations really are "on" - heavily linked, consistently referenced back, etc. On the other hand, the second really is "off of" the base idea - I started at the base idea and then went WOOSH and never thought about the base idea again . . . but the base idea was nonetheless a starting point. (This usage shares links to the construction for music "riffing off" something, which can technically likewise be phrased "variations on" something, but again, there's a subtle difference in meaning.)

Likewise, "get this off some guy" implies to me a cessation of connection with that guy in regards to the object, where "from" implies continued. I get gifts from friends, or grades from teachers; I take recipes off some dude, or my aunt, or I get ideas off some TV show.

You may still dislike the construction, but it's not meaningless - at least, neither when I use it, nor when it's used by the people I hear it from. And it's a useful meaning, so.

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

If it makes you happy, and has meaning for you, go ahead. Doesn't mean I still won't wince. ;)

My problem is that "off of" just isn't good English (in the traditional, snobby, would-the-Queen-say-that sense). You won't see it in a style manual or guide. As an editor, I am by profession mostly concerned with "good" English. I'd only give that construction a mental tick if it was being used in dialogue, or a first-person narrated novel.

The way I'd phrase it is that Wind of Ashes "uses the usual fantasy stereotypes as a jumping-off point", or that it "deviates from them", or "perverts them", or whatever. As a reader, I really don't pick up a difference in meaning in something being "based off" versus being "based on" something. Most people (in my experience=in Australia) who use the "based off" construction don't use the correct one at all, so there isn't a commonly understood difference like your usage. As an editor, I'd be concerned with the fact that your differentiation is not a widely understood one.

There is nothing in the English language's construction that means that "from" has to be a continuation. I travel from here to there; I move away from something. In English and Australian usage, from is used specifically to distance something: I'm different from him, oranges are different from apples. It wonder if "off" is a uniquely North-American thing that has since spread to Australia. I can see an American say he "got it off some dude", but I hear my inner Londoner say he "got it from some guy down the pub".

This may be a cultural thing. I've never come across an Australian who uses it discriminately like you do, but perhaps there is a discrimination in that construction in Canada, where people swap out "off" for "on" or "from" depending on context. Here it's pretty much used by the less educated.

Anyway, I can't really stop you using it, and I wouldn't if I could. I'm mostly a pretty non-interventionist editor. ;)

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

It wonder if "off" is a uniquely North-American thing that has since spread to Australia and, probably, to Britain.

I was going to add before that:

... since Americans (and possibly Canadians, I don't know your dialect's quirks sufficiently) use "than" instead of "from" in their difference construction: I'm different than him, oranges are different than apples. I find that construction utterly bizarre, but then it's not really used in my home dialect. I had it drummed into me in grammar: different from, similar to.

[youraugustine.livejournal.com]

We use both, depending on context, interchangeably. The latter definitely suggests older non-North American (specifically British) and so is also more "stuffy" in flavour (at least, to my ear) - I would use it in essays for certain teachers, and in certain tones of fiction - and NOT for other profs, and not in other tones. It all depends what colours, metaphorically, I'm trying to paint in.

(I are language dork - less for proper usage, and more for "how can I manipulate this tongue . . . ")

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

[Language geek]
I think that different constructions like different from/different than can be really useful in delineating characters in fiction. This is one of the reasons I try to keep my language as "clean" as possible, actually. I'll rail against using slang constructions like "off" partly because I write a lot of stories set in England or an analogue before present day. I want to be conscious of what slang/dialect I'm using so it doesn't turn up where it shouldn't.
[/Language geek]

[youraugustine.livejournal.com]

Heee. Yeah, there's definitely that, although I'd argue even "clean" language is its own dialect - it's just the one a certain authority has decided is Correct. So while I try to keep my dialects definitely separate, I also try to stay aware that there's not reeeeeally a "neutral" as such.

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

Oh, it definitely is. But when you're mostly writing British stories, the Queen's (or King's) English is the closest thing to neutral there is. ;)

[youraugustine.livejournal.com]

You won't see it in a style manual or guide.

*cough* *has firmly refused to buy or use one of those her entire life* (I get into arguments, remarkably similar to this one, with them).

See, the only one of your substitutes that actually means what I want it to mean is "uses as jumping off point" (which, you'll note, is the closest in terms of word-use to the phrase "I'm basing it off" - same use of "off") - in some ways it deviates from them, in some ways it doesn't, and if they're perverted in the course of the writing (which many of them are) it's by and large NOT DONE in reference to the original - which is to say, I write with the idea "what would logically happen if - " rather than "this is the stereotype, how do I go away from this". Saying "it perverts them" is far too active a phrase in relation to the stereotypes, and ties the final result of WoA and the stereotypes it begins with too tightly together, which is entirely what I want to avoid implying.

I couldn't tell you broad/perfect usage, obviously - only what I experienced. Although I can say "I got this recipe off some guy" sounds correct, while "I got a present off my mom" sounds very dismissive, even abrupt and rude, whereas "I got it from my mom" or "my mom gave it to me" is less so. It's definitely more colloquial/traditionally speaking "vulgar" usage (I'd be asking for it if I used it in a paper), but mostly my mind twigged on "meaningless" - it may not be proper grammatical official English, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have meaning and nuance of its own. :3 This may be just me being picky (also, procrastinating; I'm supposed to be writing a paper. *cough*) Hopefully I haven't annoyed. ;)

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

*cough* *has firmly refused to buy or use one of those her entire life* (I get into arguments, remarkably similar to this one, with them).
*pets* I know. If you weren't non-Australian, I'd say you should get Pam Peters' Style Guide. It's awesome, because it goes into all the arguments around different spellings or usages and where they come from and why one is "more correct", but which might be common usage in different areas. I <3 Pam Peters.

I use Style Guides or Manuals because I'm an editor, not (usually) in my role as a writer. Style Guides/Manuals are useful when I'm talking to people who aren't language savvy like yourself, so I can tell them why they're WRONG and their language use SUCKS. In non-judgemental language.

You haven't annoyed me at all. Hope I haven't bugged you too much. ;) It really was meaningless to me. As I said earlier, I haven't come across anyone else who draws distinctions in their use of it.

[watersusurrus.livejournal.com]

"I have based my project outcomes off of the validated ideas from our organisational accountability framework."

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

SHUT UP! ARGH! *flails*

[pezzae.livejournal.com]

I thought it was a dialectical thing from certain parts of America, like 'lay down' (argh no! LIE down!) and thus equally grammatically correct (for said Americans) though it still makes me wince... and I find it annoying that people here have started saying it too.