| 词组 | off of |
| 释义 | off of Off of is an innocuous idiom—a compound preposition made of the adverb off and the preposition of— that has been in use since the 16th century: • CARDINAL. What art thou lame? • SIMPCOX. Ay, God Almighty help me! • SUFFOLK. How can'st thou so? • SIMPCOX. A fall off of a tree. • WIFE. A plum tree, master—Shakespeare, 2 Henry VI, 1592 Ayres 1881 seems to have been the first commentator to question the phrase. He objected to its use in "Give me a yard off of this piece of calico," calling the of "vulgarly superfluous." From Ayres the criticism found its way into MacCracken & Sandison 1917, the Literary Digest (10 June 1922), Lincoln Library 1924, Whipple 1924, Century Collegiate Handbook 1924, Powell 1925, Lurie 1927, Jensen 1935, and so on through a host of handbooks right up to Cook 1985 and Harper 1985. Ebbitt & Ebbitt 1982 notes the occurrence of off of in general writing; Bryant 1962 and Watt 1967 find it informal. Most of the rest follow Ayres and call the of redundant. The OED notes that the adverb off occurs with of m many of its senses, with the note "formerly and still dialectally," which is echoed in Bell & Cohn 1981: "Formerly in standard use but now dialectal." The comment is probably true of British English: the only British commentator to mention the construction (Phythian 1979) says that off of is common in some parts of England, and we also have a citation for it from a collection of Suffolk dialect. Here are some live examples of how off of has been used. First a few older ones: • ... to the Rose Tavern, and there got half a breast of mutton, off of the spit, and dined all alone —Samuel Pepys, diary, 18 May 1668 • ... he entered into a very narrow passage, which was about a furlong off of the porter's lodge —John Bun-yan, Pilgrim's Progress, 1678 • I could not keep my Eyes off of her —Sir Richard Steele, The Spectator, No. 306, 1712 (OED) A couple of more recent British examples: • "... only for that there forty pound Mr. Noakes had off of me." —Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon, 1937 • ... and he takes a big parcel of newspaper off of Tiger and opens it up —Richard Llewellyn, None But the Lonely Heart, 1943 These are all American: • I judge the telephone company never made much money off of Mrs. Whitridge —Irvin S. Cobb, Old Judge Priest, 1915 • ... don't take your eye off of just what happened — Booth Tarkington, Ramsey Milholland, 1919 • "... Who the hell do you eat off of... ?" —Ernest Hemingway, To Have and Have Not, 1937 • "... She figured Brunold had taken a walkout powder, so she was off of men." —Erie Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Counterfeit Eye, 1935 • ... they could do far worse than to strip their regional cloaks off of their minds —N. Y. Herald Tribune Book Rev., 16 Apr. 1939 • ... there were moments when, with several cars coming toward me, and two or three honking behind me, and a curved road ahead, I would take my foot off of everything and wail, "Where the hell am I?" — James Thurber, letter, August 1935 • ... I'd borrow two or three dollars off of the judge —Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn, 1884 {A Mark Twain Lexicon, 1938) • "... Eck knows all about them horses ... how much him and that Texas man aim to get for them, make off of them " —William Faulkner, Spotted Horses, 1940 • ... the people lived off of Anise Slane's hoarded gold —Margaret Marchand, Saturday Rev., 27 Apr. 1940 • ... had overstocked in July and were now living off of their fat —Time, 18 Dec. 1950 • We sold our home in June and have been living off of our equity ever since —Vellar C. Plantz, Forbes, 1 Dec. 1970 • She wore a necklace of every ear, nose and eye she had gouged off of men in fights —American Guide Series: Louisiana, 1941 • 'Did you take it off of his finger?' I asked —Robert Penn Warren, Partisan Rev., Fall 1944 • LaGuerre, who couldn't take his eyes off of it — Time, 10 June 1946 • ... he could give you a scolding that would burn the hide off of you —Harry S. Truman, quoted in Merle Miller, Plain Speaking, 1973 • ... would be much obliged if you would send them a copy that I get the 40% off of —Flannery O'Connor, letter, 24 May 1952 • ... maybe you do need to be involved, to get the edges beaten off of you a little every day —William Faulkner, 25 Feb. 1957, in Faulkner in the University, 1959 • "Well, it feels as though you were on a very hard and sharp horn, and you wish sincerely that you were off of it...." —Barnaby Conrad, Matador, 1952 • ... hoping to lure women off of their jobs — Muhammad Speaks, 31 May 1968 • ... forcing most other countries off of the gold standard —E. W. Cundiff, Current History, December 1951 • You can't make nearly as much money off of horse farmers as you can off tractor farmers —Draft Horse Jour., Autumn 1983 • "Sir, please get off of me." —Jay Mclnerney, Bright Lights, Big City, 1984 • This night glow is sunlight being reflected off of cosmic dust particles—N.Y. Times, 10 Mar. 1969 You can see that in American English off of is used in contexts ranging from uneducated (Huck Finn) to general. It still seems to be primarily a form used in speech: most of the citations from fiction represent fictional speech. It is an idiom that occurred naturally in the speech of William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Harry S. Truman, and James Thurber, among others. If it is part of your personal idiom and you are not writing on an especially elevated plane, you have no reason to avoid off of. |
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