"off of" in NYT headline

David Wake dnwake at GMAIL.COM
Tue Aug 31 03:35:40 UTC 2010


I would expect "away from", but I'm more interested in the apparent
evolution of New York Times style.

David

On Aug 30, 2010, at 20:23, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

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> Poster:       Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "off of" in NYT headline
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> I would expect the NYTimes to use "off from".
> DanG
>
> On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 11:21 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com>
> wrote:
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>> Poster: ¬  ¬  ¬  Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject: ¬  ¬  ¬ Re: "off of" in NYT headline
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>> Apprently, _off of_ is unusual in your dialect. However, it's not in
>> mine and, in the environment cited, excepting the either the off" or
>> the "of" pretty much renders the headline uninterpretable for me:
>>
>> Lenders Back Off Environmental Risks
>>
>> Lenders Back of Environmental Risks
>>
>> --
>> -Wilson
>> ā€“ā€“ā€“
>> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"ā€“ā
>> €“a strange complaint to
>> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>> ā€“Mark Twain
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 10:13 PM, David Wake <dnwake at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
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>>> Sender: Ā  Ā  Ā  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSER
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>>> Poster: Ā  Ā  Ā  David Wake <dnwake at GMAIL.COM>
>>> Subject: Ā  Ā  Ā "off of" in NYT headline
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>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/business/energy-environment/31coal.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
>>>
>>> I've spotted this collocation a few times in the text of weekend
>>> editions, but never in a headline, and never on a weekday. Ā I
>>> wonder
>>> whether this marks an official change in house style, or merely a
>>> change in staff among the copyeditors?
>>>
>>> David
>>>
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