“OFF OF”

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25739, 26 February 1949, Page 3

“OFF OF”

Literary Views And Reviews

I Specially Written for '"The Press.”) IBy ARNOLD WALL] of 3 ®°.° d 111 to get a view ofl I Sr A~S,®» ■ «»»; th/° U See a pair o£ twins occupyfor " o£ ” and “OH" S?xnn ?o,” eS ? en l ants o£ the Angloh?v? = Of l In the flrs£ example you i li?h vulgarism. No reputable Engexce,T£ er th wou!d dare t o P S ay “off of” dfabEmi th e representation of vulgar j Plle ln American it is • a O£ " Anglo-Saxon is verb S ”%? nd occasionally an ad- i b S* ls now Preposition, ad- ■ raffs’” a ? J J !Ct 7 e - and noun - ln “off the I off”’it i 8” rt 1S j a Preposition; in “go 1 tho + ls an adverb. We pronounce < , words differently. “Of” is 1 f has - the shar P sound of < tb o ih A dlfference ln sou nd arises from i the difference m usage. “Of” is usu- 1 ?r J JO r ° n °4 Unc^ d ver y Kg&tly with the i \jowel quite obscure, whereas “off” is i m 0 !?” 3110 . wor d. The weak emphasis ' u-4 r ®^ uires the flat, weak sound ' v, while the strongly stressed “off” de- i mands the sharp f. But in certain dialects of has normally the sound f. especially in Scots. Historical Like all prepositions of ancient ' origin, of is overworked. This one tiny word, only two letters, has to bear the responsibility of 63 distinct : meanings or shades of meaning. The • spelling with ff. marking the recogniH on th ® newer usage, dates from the fifteenth century though we have examples of “of’ as an adverb in the fourteenth, e.g., in Chaucer, with nothing to show whether it was pronounced with the ff. “Off” is one of those embarrassing words which may lie pronounced, legitimately, in more than one wa y* * ,e *’ with the short oas in. “pot,” or the long open o as in “broad.” This letter -is often spelt, and very badly, orf,” or better “awf,” and is commonly used to indicate a vulgar pronunciatiim though actually its status is unimpeachable. “Of” too has more than one pronunciation; for when it is strongly as in “he is in the world but not of it,” it must have the full s<wnd of short o as in “pot”; but, more frequently, it is very lightly stressed as in “get out of it” and it then has only the obscure sound. Further, it is often shortened to “o’ ”, not only in the Scots ‘land o’ cakes,” etc., but in many English phrases such as “light o’ love”, “twelve o’clock.” So, you see, tiny as it is, we make it tinier yet. Most prepositions hav6 managed in the course of the ages to shift some of their burdens on to others; but our hero has seldom been able to do this; in other words, few idioms of “of” have become obsolete. However, we can no longer say “He was seen of many,” we say “by many”; and in very old times it could be used where we say “from” or “out of”: a fountain arises “of” the earth. Eccentricities In one respect “of” stands alone, not only among the prepositions, but among all words, for tne function of words is to convey fneaning while “of” may be used, and very often is used, without any jneaning at all. We say, e.g., the City of London, the County of Cornwall, and it is obvious that “of” here means exactly nothing; yet we don’t like to say the City London, so strong is the force of habit. This usage may be compared to the function of a washer in machinery which only serves to keep two surfaces apart and to ensure complete closure. It may also be compared to a barren strip of country which becomes a buffer State; but of the two illustrations I prefer the former. An unfortunate but by no means inevitable consequence of this usage is the gratuitous insertion of “of” in “the question OF whether, OF what, OF why,” of which so many English writers are guilty. “We consider the question whether we shall go or not.” What is wrong with that? Nothing is wrong, but the writer WILL put m his “of”. This is a quite modern vice but has such a strong hold that it possibly will never be eradicated. It is one of the ways in which we dilute our speech in response to the feeling that not be too terse lest what we say should not reach the average intelligence. There is another oddity which is peculiar to “of.” When lightly pronounced, with the obscure vowel, it coincides in sound with “have” similarly used. In “He would have (sometimes written “would’ve”) gone” the sound of “have” or “’ve” is the same as “of’ in “out of it”, or very nearly. So, in very careless and vulgar speech, “have” here is sometimes replaced by “of”, often with the full sound of the short o. Then we get “He would of gone” or even “He would of.” This “would of’ is to be seen frequently in representations of American speech, especially that of young people; e.g.. in the admirable if cruel studies of American youth -by Booth Tarkington. It occurs too, but far less often. I think, in representations of vulgar English speech. I know of no other case in which a preposition is called on to masquerade as a verb. “Of” also stands proudly alone among the prepositions as being used for the name of a street. When the property of the Duke of Buckingham was dismembered and “built up,” between the Strand and the Thames, one street was named Duke Street and another Buckingham Street while a small street between these was named Of Alley. Here Of is a noun. American Usage American usage differs in several ways from English in respect of ‘‘of. Sometimes it is used where English omits it and sometimes it is omitted where English requires it. In Lincoln’s famous “crack,” for instance, it is “all OF the people, all OF the time”; English says “all the people, all the time.” “Of’ here is just as meaningless, just as much a mere washer, as in “the City of London.’’ Then an Englishman “feels his foot”; an American “feels OF it.” As if to counterbalance this bit of favouritism the American goes “out the window, “out the door.” The Englishman inserts the “of.” I don’t know why this particular usage should be so fiercely hated by many people who, I find, think it maddening, “and I have no passion for it,” as Dr. Johnson said of clean linen. Like so many other Americanisms, “out the door” is creeping into English writings. There are examples of it, e.g., in the evidence as reported in the inquiry into Ballantyne’s fire, but whether the reporters or the witnesses were primarily responsible I cannot say. Finally, the American writes “twenty minutes OF six” as the Englishman does not.