We’re all Rolling Stones fans here, right? I mean, we’re all here on a grammar blog, so I don’t think I’m jumping to too wild a conclusion to assume that we’re almost all oldsters, whether in actual age or personality. So let’s talk about the classic “Get Off of My Cloud”:
As it turns out, the Stones weren’t terribly fond of this song; they felt it was a rushed follow-up to the runaway success of “Satisfaction”. But some grammar peevers dislike it for an unrelated reason:
“‘Off of’ is no way to talk. It IS really, really bad English.”
Hatred of off of is widespread. It pops up commonly in peeve lists. Some professional grammar commentators share this complaint: the quote above is from Patricia O’Conner of Grammarphobia*, and Grammar Girl tersely dismisses it with “You jump off the pier, not off OF the pier”.
So what’s supposedly wrong with off of? The main problem seems to be that the of is unnecessary, but another common one is that since it’s on and not on of, it must be off and not off of. I also see complaints that it’s dialectal or informal or American, that one can’t put two prepositions next to each other, or that it ought to be from. And worse, given all of these problems, the phrase is supposedly spreading.
Let’s take these in reverse order. First, I’m unconvinced that it’s spreading, unless you’re talking about a very recent (last 20 years) spread. Here’re the Google Books counts, and you’ll note that modern off of usage is still below its peak in 1910. The Corpus of Historical American English has a slightly different picture, with more-or-less stable usage from 1900 to the 1980s, and then a jolt up in the 90s and 2000s. Maybe it’s spreading, maybe not. But let’s talk about why it’s not bad either way.
I’ll start with the easiest objections. No, it shouldn’t just be from. Consider:
(1a) The numbers station is broadcasting from a shed off of Route 395.
(1b) *The numbers station is broadcasting from a shed from Route 395.
And yes, you can put two prepositions next to each other, as in this unobjectionable example:
(2) I pulled a coat out of the closet.
Going on to a somewhat more complex objection, antonymic phrases do not have to share structures or prepositions. The fact that you get on and not on of a train doesn’t mean that you have to get off and not off of it. Consider:
(3a) I put the sandwiches into the picnic basket, but someone has pulled them out of it.
(3b) One velociraptor was in front of Muldoon, the other next to him.
And now on to the involved discussions. One question is whether off is always sufficient, and off of thus always unnecessarily wordy. And the answer, I think, depends on that of a second question: whether off of is dialectal.
In my idiolect, off of is perfectly standard. I was probably in my twenties before I heard someone object to it. That’s not to say I can’t use off without of. To the contrary, I prefer (4) without of, though both forms are acceptable to me:
(4) The leaves fell off the tree.
That said, of is not always superfluous to me. A few examples where I find removing of to make the sentence noticeably worse:
(5a) It’s a way of profiting off of something you expect to drop in value.
(5b) My new invention will knock the socks off of the scientific community.
(5c) I broke your statue by knocking the top off of it.
You may not agree, even if you come from an off of idiolect, that these forms are better, but that’s not important. The key point is only that sometimes, to some people, off of is distinctly more mellifluous than off. Dismissing off of out of hand as superfluous is valid only in dialects that already don’t allow it.
Let me elaborate this “necessity depends on dialect” point by proposing an insane argument. I’ve mentioned before that, being from Pittsburgh, I am perfectly content to say The car needs washed instead of The car needs to be washed. Within my dialect, to be is often superfluous, and there are some sentences that I find greatly improved by omitting it. Thus, I could see arguing that to be is, at least sometimes, unnecessary. But if I argued this to someone speaking a “standard” dialect of English, I would sound crazy. Saying that of in off of is across-the-board unnecessary sounds equally crazy to me.**
So is off of dialectal and/or informal? The answer would seem to be yes to both. The Oxford English Dictionary calls it “only colloq. (nonstandard) and regional” in current use. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage says it’s “primarily a form used in speech”. The Columbia Guide to Standard American English says it’s avoided at “Planned and Oratorical levels and in Semiformal and Formal writing.”
Those sources are generally pretty trustworthy with their opinions, and given the amount of people who find off of unacceptable, I’m inclined to believe that it really is dialectal. When that’s coupled with its primarily spoken usage patterns, it’s no surprise that it would feel informal, especially to people from other dialects. And using the Corpus of Contemporary American English as a measuring stick of informality, off of occurs in speech twice as often as in written fiction, about four times as often as in newspapers/magazines, and almost ten times as often as in academic writing. The more formal the style, the less likely you’ll see off of.
All that said, its informality doesn’t mean it’s an illiteracy. Off of used to be standard in English; the MWDEU starts off with a Shakespearean usage [1592] and continues with Pepys [1668] and Bunyan [1678]. In the last century, they show it used by Hemingway, Faulkner, and Harry Truman, among others. So if it is making a comeback, it’s no harbinger of linguistic doom, just a return to form.
Summary: There is nothing linguistically or grammatically wrong with off of. It’s nonstandard in some dialects and informal in most, so you should probably avoid it if you’re concerned about your writing seeming formal. But when formality isn’t a concern, use it as you see fit.
—
*: This is a surprising stance, because it comes from Patricia O’Conner of Grammarphobia, who’s normally a lot less judgmental about such things. In fact, three years later, she softened her stance, although she remains against off of. I included her original opinion because her reconsideration shows that even hard-line opinions can (and should) be altered in the face of evidence, so long as the commentator is reasonable.
**: In fact, I and others within my dialect seem to have strong intuitions about times when the to be can and can’t be felicitiously dropped, in the same way as I see off of. It’s not a matter of necessity but of felicity.
Motivated Grammar 
58 comments
Comments feed for this article
July 31, 2012 at 3:11 pm
dw
Fingers on blackboard. Sorry. Inner peeve won’t let go of this one.
It seems to me that “off of” is a lot more common in contemporary formal AmE than contemporary formal BrE (despite the Rolling Stones). I’ve occasionally seen it slip into the online NYT on weekends (when I presume the normal copyeditors are away).
July 31, 2012 at 4:59 pm
The Ridger
For me, “off of” isn’t matched with “on”, but with “onto”, like “out of” is with “into”, not “in”. Sure, you don’t always need it, but until the peevers take on “he jumped onto the table”, I’m gonna ignore them. (and I’ll probably disagree with them if they do)
August 1, 2012 at 7:06 am
Marc Leavitt
Sometimes I get off the bus, and sometimes I get off of the bus. Not being overly peevish, I’m getting off the subject.
August 2, 2012 at 11:13 am
Daniel
I was going to make the same point that The Ridger makes about off of/onto versus out of/into. Not that it really matters (we all know that language need not be logical), but it might get the peevers to re-evaluate this one peeve.
I will also take this opportunity to comment that I think the Rolling Stones are one of the most overrated bands in all of rock music.
August 4, 2012 at 12:28 am
Eugene
I agree that the arguments against ‘off of’ are quite weak. In particular, parallelism (you can’t say ‘on of’…) isn’t strong negative evidence of ungrammaticality, though I do think that ‘out of’ is pretty good positive evidence in support.
The redundancy argument (unnecessary word) may have some merit in formal printed language where ink and space are issues. Also, the permanence of print allows for a slightly different kind of language processing. A little bit of redundancy in spoken language is not only OK, it’s probably quite helpful.
Also, the etymology suggests that ‘off’ was originally adverbial and not a preposition, so the compound would be a venerable construction, as suggested by the citations from Shakespeare and others. You would think that the grammar girls and ladies would bemoan its reduction rather than object to its continued use.
Finally, we very often have two very similar ways to convey two very similar meanings. It isn’t necessarily the case that one of them has to be wrong even if you imagine the sound of fingernails on blackboards when you hear it. Some teacher probably did that to you.
August 6, 2012 at 11:13 am
dw
@Eugene:
Etymologically, both “off” and “of” are the same word! “Off” was originally an adverb, having a meaning of “away from” — it’s from an Indo-European root, cognate with Greek ἀπό and Latin ab, as in e.g. “abduct” = “lead away (from)”.
“Of” started out as a weak version of “off”. I don’t have access to the OED right now, but I believe that it first developed a weakened sense simply indicating possession (as in “The Life OF Brian”), possibly as a calque of French “de”. It then started to get used in prepositional phrases — e.g. “in front of”, from which its use generalized in some dialects into a kind of all-purpose space-filler in such phrases.
I agree that, despite my strong aesthetic dislike of “off of”, I can’t logically justify objecting to the inclusion of “of” in “off of” while at the same time insisting (as prescriptivists usually do) on its inclusion in phrases such as “out of the window”.
August 7, 2012 at 12:20 am
Eugene
That’s true about ‘off’ and ‘of’ coming from the same source.
I’m wondering whether there’s a partial semantic difference between ‘off’ and ‘off of’ given that ‘out’ and ‘out of’ aren’t exactly the same. For example, you can kick somebody out of an establishment, but you’d then throw them out the door. There’s a slightly different perspective taken.
And why out the door but out of the window?
August 9, 2012 at 3:17 am
Rilian
Off and out aren’t prepositions, they’re adverbs or something. Also, you jump onto something or off of something.
August 10, 2012 at 7:34 am
Eugene
In the [off of NP] and [out of NP] constructions the dictionary treats ‘off’ and ‘out’ as adverbs. (Another analysis would call them particles.) In the [off NP] and [out NP] constructions the dictionary treats them as prepositions.
We do use both. People certainly jump on bandwagons and jump off bridges. I agree that we can also jump onto or off of something. The question is whether there’s a semantic difference between the two constructions or whether it’s a matter of dialectal or social variation.
August 10, 2012 at 4:01 pm
Rilian
What’s a particle anyway? I’ve looked into it but still don’t get.
August 10, 2012 at 4:18 pm
the ridger
Essentially a particle is a little word that goes with a verb – most look like prepositions, but aren’t. Originally they were actually part of the verb (still are in German) but got separated. You can tell it’s a particle if the pronoun direct object goes in front of it (turn it on rather than turn on it; the latter IS a preposition).
August 15, 2012 at 10:57 am
Link love: language (45) « Sentence first
[…] Is there anything wrong with off of? […]
August 15, 2012 at 1:29 pm
mollymooly
I think my idiolect lacks “off of”, but I’m not sure. When I hear Frankie Valli’s original recording of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” I always (mentally) add an “Of”, as (non-mentally) do most cover versions. That may be the meter talking. Ditto “The Blower’s Daughter”.
August 16, 2012 at 11:12 am
Gabe
dw: It’s interesting how many reasonable grammarians have a deep antipathy for it; not just you, but Patricia O’Conner and others. It’s so weird to me as a native user of “off of”, because “off” alone often sounds truncated, but even then, it never sounds terrible.
The Ridger/Daniel: A very good point indeed, and, one can hope, the nail in the coffin.
mollymooly: Same here — I can’t even imagine the song without “of”.
Everyone: A fascinating discussion, thanks!
September 1, 2012 at 10:34 pm
Dan M.
Your example (3a) brings out sharply how “into” is closely analogous to “off of”, with the one marked difference of being merged into a single word. And again, in the Anglo-Saxon, “inn” was an adverb and “to NP” was a PP modifying it, giving “inn to NP”.
Perhaps we could stop complaints about “off of” by switching to use “outof” and “offof” (presumably with the trade-off of starting complaints about “offof”).
September 1, 2012 at 10:35 pm
Dan M.
Oh, and I’m 35, which probably doesn’t count as an oldster, and hate The Rolling Stones for being old-fart music.
October 27, 2012 at 6:27 pm
jackprime
As an Australian, I despise ‘off of’, not just for how wrong it sounds and how illogical its use is (to me), but also the fact that it seems to be bleeding into British and Australian English more and more through American pop culture, similarly to ‘different than’ (shudder). God damn your cultural imperialism, America.
October 28, 2012 at 10:53 am
Rilian
It’s not mine. It’s not even the fault of the conceptual “america”. It’s the fault of the people who absorb it into their own culture. But I don’t think it’s a bad thing. It’s not good either, it just is. Also, my friends all think I talk funny because I watch australian tv. So they could just as easily be cursing your culture for ruininn america. And, what do you say, “different to”? That sounds horrible and wrong to me. It should be “different from”.
October 28, 2012 at 7:33 pm
jackprime
Most people will absorb what they’re most exposed to though. And Australian TV doesn’t have anywhere near the sort of reach that American stuff does. But even if it did I wouldn’t see it as as much of a problem because obviously *we* speak better! (Haha.)
And I try to say ‘different from’, yes, but ‘different to’ is very common here too. I can justify its use a little though: if we say ‘in contrast to’, ‘different to’ seems acceptable to me. Compared to ‘different than’, certainly, since ‘from’ and ‘to’ exist on the same, uh, ‘plane’ I suppose, they just suggest different directions. ‘Than’s usage is exclusively reserved for comparative adjectives/adverbs, and ‘different’ is only comparative semantically, not grammatically. But really I think it’s probably human nature to justify our own uses whether they’re actually right or not.
January 8, 2013 at 11:53 pm
dainichi
@dw
“insisting (as prescriptivists usually do) on its inclusion in phrases such as “out of the window””
I’m surprised that anyone would prefer “out of the window” over “out the window”. Sure, I hear “out of the window” all the time, but I was under the impression that – strictly speaking – “out” means “out through”, whereas “out of” means “out of (something you were previously inside)”. As far as I can see, Dictionary.com agrees with this distinction. Under these definitions, “out of the window” would only make sense if you were a ghost or something trapped in the window.
I would have imagined that prescriptivists would say that “out of the window” is incorrect.
January 9, 2013 at 8:41 am
dw
@dainichi In my experience, “out of the window” is the only option that is allowed in British edited prose (I grew up there).
November 19, 2013 at 5:53 pm
Kerr Lockhart
It’s ugly, clumsy and unnecessary. I particularly hate “based off of.” “Based on” is fine, clear and clean. Would you say your house was built off of the ground, unless it was a few feet in the air? It’s the same thought conceptually. I don’t care if it’s technically correct. “Off of” sounds like nails across the blackboard.
February 6, 2014 at 3:10 pm
John Cox
The issue is not whether a particular form of bad English is spreading, but whether it is bad English. If it is bad we should not condone it, irrespective of how widespread it is.
My “favourite” bad English example is “One of the only”. Something is either “the only” or one of a number.
March 16, 2014 at 1:00 pm
PM
The opposite of on to / onto is surely off FROM. I jumped on to the train. I jumped off from the train.
The author’s examples stating “from” to be wrong are incorrect, as they are substituting the whole thing for “from” rather than just the “of”.
March 19, 2014 at 7:47 am
bathos
I don’t think this is an issue of mellifluousness. I live in a region where “off of” is normal (which, in my experience, is at least the entire northeastern US), but for me, as for some other commenters, “off of” and “off” do not have the same meaning. For example, I would take a skillet “off the heat” but “off of the stove”. I would take a jacket “off” but if it were on top of a table I would take it “off of” the table. “Off of” is, for me and I suspect other regional speakers, a unique preposition that is used when the object in question was literally, materially resting on another object, especially if to be “off of” it is also to be “down from” it. I would never say “based off of” or “the leaves fell off of the tree” or “take the lid off of the jar”, but I would also never say “get off the roof” (which causes full-on grammatical “ugh” for me) or “take the books off the shelf” (which, to me, is almost as painful as “need washed”). These definitions may not be perfect, but I’m sure the usage is not arbitrary and people who use “off of” and “off” apply them consistently and to indicate different things.
I think “off of” in the phrase “off of route 2” might be a seperate idiomatic usage. While it doesn’t sound wrong to me, I think I would only say it if I meant to emphasize that route 2 was a “starting point” (whereas “off route 2” makes me think it’s *right* off route 2).
(John Cox, “one of the only” makes both grammatical and logical sense to me; in order for it not to, you would also have to believe that “the only green cats in the world” is unacceptable. Only does refer to “the singular example”, but that example can be collective — let’s say there are five such cats. “She was one of the only green cats in the world.” You offered “one of a number” as an alternative, but it has an almost contrary meaning: “one of a number” emphasizes quantity, not scarcity. MW even gives “only” a third definition as “few” and uses this construction in their example.)
March 26, 2014 at 1:10 pm
Today, I might be wrong. | MJR Lawrence
[…] of” is “illiterate,” “incorrect,” “unnecessary,” “dialectal or informal,” and even […]
July 23, 2014 at 1:13 pm
Pseudo Mike
While certainly unqualified to debate this dialectal, idiolectal, formal/non-formal and controversial colloquialism (or not), I simply prefer to get off of my horse than to get off my horse (which just sounds a little too pervy for me). But, to each his own. In a hundred years no one will care anyway. And my horse will be dead.
August 4, 2014 at 1:57 pm
Bad grammar
idiots use off of in a sentance
August 25, 2014 at 9:05 am
JH Dreisdale
HUUUUUUGE pet peeves of mine:
“try AND” instead of “try TO”
“I COULD care less” instead of “I COULDN’T care less”
Thanks for allowing me to get these off of (only KIDDING!) my chest! :)
September 26, 2014 at 7:22 am
Roger M
“Off of” is just a redundant use of prepositions and it sounds horrible. Sure, you can have two prepositions together, but no need for “of” really ever to follow “off”. “Get off of my Cloud” was written in LA by Jagger and Richards (and Richards say it was done in a hurry). I would speculate that as Jagger liked to sing with a southern drawl and that the guys had spent so much time in the USA, they went with the American colloquialism. But let’s not refer to song lyrics as a reference for grammar. Case in point, “I can’t get no satisfaction”.
Of course the absolute worst use of this parlance is “based off of”. How can you turn the word “on” into “off of”? The phrase is “based on”.
November 26, 2014 at 3:52 pm
Curt Birger Halen
I’ve always thought Mick Jagger sang “Get Offa My Cloud”, not “Get Off Of My Cloud”. Listening to the Stones song again and again now, it sure sounds like “Offa”. Maybe that’s the word we should be using…then all the arguing about “Off” or “Off of” would be moot.
February 3, 2015 at 2:45 pm
Raoul Sassetti
I’ll start with the easiest objections. No, it shouldn’t just be from. Consider:
(1a) The numbers station is broadcasting from a shed off of Route 395.
(1b) *The numbers station is broadcasting from a shed from Route 395.
And…what’s wrong with
(1c) The numbers station is broadcasting from a shed ON Route 395.
June 12, 2015 at 2:09 am
kha sab
I’m not getting into the ‘off of ‘ argument. To my mind it’s unnecessary and wrong. ” I live off of this” was a sentence I saw recently. take out the ‘off’. We have “I live of this” . makes no sense. It’s not the correct word. Take out the ‘of’ we have ” I live off this” ah! a correct sentence.
A separate point. the use of ‘idiolect on this page as in ” if you come from an off of idiolect” or “In my idiolect, off of is perfectly standard..” and
“I think my idiolect lacks “off of”, but I’m not sure.”
The word ‘idiolect’ is being misused. I think the writers mean dialect. Idiolect is not a manner of speaking you share with others in the same region it refers to you specifically. Your idiolect is how each individual uses the language, the choices you make.
June 12, 2015 at 2:18 am
kha sab
worst language destruction by Americans? screwing up the third conditional.
It’s NOT ” If I would have seen him I would have told him” it’s
“If I had seen him, I would have told him” nor is it (god help us) ” I wish I would have been there”. It’s ” I wish I had been there” ” If I had been there I could have told him”.
November 18, 2015 at 8:25 am
ajohnfw
One gets on to a train and not on a train. Therefore one gets off of a train and not off a train.
December 10, 2015 at 6:15 pm
Andreas Falke
I almost always comment on this in student papers. At least among my colleagues few seem to claim that it is never grammatical. It is, however, almost always bad speech and writing. Furthermore, in some cases “off of” actually changes the meaning of the sentence or introduces an ambiguity. The trouble is that many students, as well as people in general, are not capable anymore to detect when it does exactly because they use “off of” indiscriminately. Because of that, its excessive use indicates or yields an impoverishment of the English language.
As one commenters said, many people use it as a substitute for “on,” as in “x is based off of.” Strictly speaking, they end up saying the opposite of what they intended to say. In such context, it is wrong to use it because it does not have the intended meaning. It remains good advice to avoid it, regardless of whether it is grammatical or not.
December 10, 2015 at 6:21 pm
Andreas Falke
Sorry. I hit the submit button prematurely. Since this is a grammar blog: “capable of detecting,” not “capable to detect.”
May 28, 2016 at 5:42 pm
Leah Doner
“I helped my Uncle Jack off of a horse” sounds better than “I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse”.
October 26, 2016 at 5:09 pm
whero103
I just stumbled across this thread while looking for something else and thought I’d add something to the discussion. This wasn’t the first song to use suspect grammar and it wasn’t the last. The number of syllables in a song lyric is important to get it to scan properly. Adding (or removing) words is sometimes necessary to fit the words to the intended rhythm and melody. Regardless of how we feel about “off” vs. “off of”, you’re going to give yourself a heart attack if you allow yourself to get upset by the spelling and grammar in song titles and lyrics.
And, for what it’s worth, I’m a big fan of the Stones (pre-1980).
October 26, 2016 at 9:00 pm
Anthony Debono
‘Off of’ is the vector, ‘on to’ is also the vector.
‘Of’ is away, ‘to’ is toward. This matches the direction of their counter parts; ‘off’ being away, and ‘no’ being toward.
January 11, 2017 at 8:44 am
eomot
“Off of” is not standard in southern Scots dialects, but “needs washed” cetainly is, and putting “to be” in there might get you accused of being some sort of Sasunnach.
February 23, 2017 at 9:56 pm
Dan Djurdjevic
I agree it’s a matter of dialect.
In my dialect, I haven’t found a single sentence where I feel “off of” is necessary. Where people (mostly north Americans, I notice – although it is increasingly spreading into our dialect due to the pervasiveness of US culture) feel “of” is necessary, I would naturally recast the sentence.
So I wouldn’t say:
“It’s a way of profiting off of something you expect to drop in value.”
Instead I would say:
“It’s a way of profiting from something you expect to drop in value.”
I wouldn’t say:
“My new invention will knock the socks off of the scientific community.”
Instead I would say:
“My new invention will knock the socks off the scientific community.” (The expression “knock the socks off” is well known in Australian/British English – not “knock the socks off of” which sounds odd to our ears.)
And, most relevantly, I wouldn’t say:
“I broke your statue by knocking the top off of it”.
Instead I would recast the sentence completely to say:
“I broke your statue by knocking its top off.” / “I broke your statue by knocking off its top.”
or
“I broke your statue by knocking the top of it off.” (The “of” here functions as a possessive and replaces “its”.)
Simply put, to my ear (given my dialect of Australian/British English) when I hear “off of” I hear an “unnecessary redundancy” that I don’t hear when I hear “out of”, “onto” or “into”.
Logically speaking there is, of course, no such redundancy – any more than there is in using “out of”, “onto” or “into”. It’s a matter of how the people around you speak and what you’re used to.
I won’t ever use “off of” just as I won’t ever spell “aluminium” as “aluminum”. But do I care if Americans typically use both? No – it’s just not my dialect of English. I won’t pronounce “buoy” as “booey”, “herb” as “erb”, “adult” as “uhDult” (rather than “Add-ult”) or “suggestion” as “sug-jeschun” (rather than “su-jueschun”) – just as I don’t speak with a North American accent but a variant on Australian/British colonial received pronunciation.
February 28, 2017 at 11:50 am
BeG
English is my second language (age 7, Louisiana, USA). I always had trouble with the little words: is it IN Louisiana, or AT Louisiana? In retrospect, I realize my teachers respected the English language. One thing they taught me is that all languages evolve, not always for the better. All languages have differences in the written and spoken word. Redundancies in the spoken word are acceptable because by its nature conversation is informal. However, allowing colloquialisms and other such informal usage into the written word deteriorates the language, mostly because the written word is permanent. Many of today’s bloggers are the worst example I’ve seen of spreading the misuse of grammar. The young read these blogs and accept incorrect usage as “the written word.” I once wrote to the NYT about poor language usage because I prefer standards to be maintained. Someone has to be able to say this is correct usage, and this is not correct usage.
And Dr. Doyle, I am disappointed that you believe the use of “off of” is acceptable because it is commonly used in your region. That does not make it correct. Just like it’s not correct to say “irregardless” no matter how many times you hear it said by the uneducated masses.
Another thing, to use Faulkner and Hemingway as examples of the usage of “off of” is rather a manipulative argument. Faulkner did not follow convention in any way (grammar, punctuation). He wrote in the voice of the people he was writing about, very informal southern folk. His prose was meant to be like oral histories. And Hemingway, lauded by many for his style, he too represented the speech of his speakers/characters in the way people actually speak. To use these two respected American authors as proof that it is acceptable to use “off of” is a weak argument especially as their usage was in that of a person speaking.
April 19, 2017 at 9:34 am
pdadme
How do people feel about using “To the contrary” rather than “on the contrary”?
May 11, 2017 at 12:06 pm
On “off of” | Motivated Grammar | On Vietnam and the World
[…] Source: On “off of” | Motivated Grammar […]
August 18, 2017 at 8:08 pm
JR
Get off the couch. v. Get off of the couch. In the former, it is an order. It would not matter if the individual addressed was on a couch or a rock. “Get off” is the order. “Get off of…..the couch” tells the individual addressed that he or she must get off the couch, but would be welcome to sit on something else. – More important – how about deleting Dan M.’s idiotic comment about the music of the Rolling Stones being “old fart” music.
March 19, 2018 at 5:36 pm
V.Pinches
To whom it may concern: “out of” is not putting two prepositions together,for the simple reason that “out” is not a preposition, at least not in standard English. .
March 19, 2018 at 6:19 pm
the ridger
Quite a few people – from Quirk on – disagree with you.
May 12, 2018 at 5:06 pm
Mark
Americanese….. try using FROM……. .simple. One less letter and grammaticly correct!!!
May 12, 2018 at 5:10 pm
Mark
grammatically
June 22, 2018 at 11:46 am
Steve Golden
This is mostly about “off” vs. “off of”, my complaint is with “off of used when the meaning is from and your first example (1b) *The numbers station is broadcasting from a shed from Route 395. Should be (1b) *The numbers station is broadcasting from a shed ON Route 395. This has nothing to do with the off-from question. It is not “they were making money OFF OF children” it is “they were making money FROM children”.
July 5, 2018 at 12:51 pm
elena55
“Out of” and “Into” are phrasal verbs (English is full of them thanks to German). Thus, the “of” in “out of” is not free-standing and cannot be compared to “off of” just because you can say”into” Phrasal verbs (get up,cut off, give up or give in) have solid, independent meanings and cannot be separate for comparison purposes, and certainly not as a valid argument to prove that “off of” is correct. The ‘off” in fell off, already contains the meaning of “off”. It’s redundancy. PS Out the window is another Americanism that grates on British ears. Out of the window is perfect!
July 5, 2018 at 2:10 pm
the ridger
They are not verbs at all. There is no verb in “off of”. They are compound prrpositions.
July 5, 2018 at 3:35 pm
elena55
You are absolutely right. Sorry I didn’t explain clearly the connection between ‘get out” (phrasal verb) and not to be used to analyze prepositional phrases. “Out of” and “into” are compound prepositions but often used in phrasal verb combinations such as, “Get out of the bus.” So to use a phrasal verb plus another preposition makes no sense. “Get off (phrasal verb) plus another preposition “of” is redundant. ‘Out of” and “Into” are preposition to talk about movement but when combined with a phrasal verb may change.Get off the chair already includes “of” Utter redundancy. It would be like saying Go into to the store. Silly!
February 24, 2019 at 12:32 am
Shirley S Boardman
Do you take the ‘day off ‘ work or the ‘day off of ‘ work?
February 24, 2019 at 7:44 am
Ruby Walsworth
Take your feet off of the table..Painful to the ear and Incredibly dissonant!
February 24, 2019 at 10:31 pm
Shirley S Boardman
Right. Just take your feet off the table. But that’s a different, physical place feet are being removed from. But. . . taking the day ‘off of” work? I need some advice on that.
March 3, 2019 at 3:38 am
John Wilde
When it is said get off of the bus, what does “of the bus” mean? To be consistent one should also say “get on of the bus.