[Ads-l] Antedating "Off the Cuff" - 1926, different meaning?

Mon Mar 19 22:39:12 UTC 2018

Peter,
 There are other pertinent citations in the archives. I do not know if
you have seen them.

Back in 2015 Bill Mullins posted an April 1925 citation with the
phrase "just about get off the cuff". JL explained that "On the cuff"
= "on credit". See the discussion thread:

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2015-February/136098.html

Bill also posted an April 1926 citation containing "shoot from the
cuff" in the domain of movie direction. The citation included an
explanation of the phrase.

Garson

On Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 4:10 PM, Peter Reitan <pjreitan at hotmail.com> wrote:
> A couple years ago I wrote a piece about the history of writing on shirt cuffs and its relationship to the idiom, "off the cuff," <https://esnpc.blogspot.com/2015/02/paper-linen-and-crib-notes-well-planned.html> that emerged in the 1930s.
>
>
> Shortly after I posted the piece, Stephen Goranson posted several antedatings of "off the cuff" that related to shooting movies without a formal script, but from notes written on the shirt cuff of the director.
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2015-February/136073.html
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2015-February/136071.html
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2015-February/136070.html
>
>
> The earliest example he posted he had previously posted in 2012; it dated to 1927:
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2012-August/121545.html
>
>
> Cite: 1927 July 17, Los Angeles Times, What Will Academy Achieve?, Page C9, Column 2, Los Angeles, California. (ProQuest)  [Begin excerpt] Some decision should be arrived at for a practical plan for a scenario. There seems to be no accepted form at this time. Some directors shoot from the cuff, and others want a script running into thousands and thousands of words. [End excerpt]
>
>
> I've found an earlier example of "off the cuff" that appears unrelated to the Hollywood usage and which appears to mean something different from the spontaneous meaning of "off the cuff," but which may still be related to writing on cuffs.  The earliest example I found of this usage is 1926, and I could not quickly find any other such usages until the 1940s.
>
>
> "Living 'off the cuff'" was apparently used to refer to who live off borrow money or panhandlers, it's not quite clear which.  In the 1940s, it was used to refer to running a household on credit instead on a cash basis, and in the 1950s, it was used in a cartoon that showed someone approaching a pawn shop.  In these cases, it seems possible that it refers to keeping track of loans with notes on a shirt cuff, but it is not explained and I could not find very many examples to clarify.
>
>
> 1926: In a syndicated column, New York Day by Day, O. O. McIntyre, writing about life in Miami Beach, appeared in many papers, including:  The Tribune (Coshocton, Ohio) 09 Feb 1926,Page 6:
>
>
> "There are very few of those dapper and gaily-habited young men who enhance the cosmopolitan air of Manhattan, down here. . . .  Thousands are living “off the cuff,” or as we say up north, “mooching.”
>
> [End]
>
>
> 1947: Used to refer to the life of a tennis amateur, when tennis amateurs travelled the world, to play in tournaments and lived a high life bumming from club to club with expenses, lodging and board paid by tournament sponsors and clubs.  The Evening News (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, June 19, 1947, page 34:
>
>
> "Professional tennis is a strange sort of a sport which needs a periodical influx of recent amateurs to make it click, and which often is less alluring to the amateur than his natural state of living off the cuff.  We all must know that the amateur doesn’t receive a salary or a duly stipulated and publicized cut of the gate receipts, but they still do a little better than all right with board and lodging in fancy joints and expenses. . . . The professionals do not always want for the bare necessities of life because the big guys got their wallets upholstered in the first big splash when they jumped from the cuff department into the pro gravy bowl."
>
> [END]
>
>
> 1955: Used in a syndicated column referring to the growing use of credit to meet expenses. Taylor Daily Press (Taylor, Texas), September 21, 1955, page 6.
>
>
> “Of the present propensity to live off the cuff it’s said that this is the normal instinct of a new generation to whom the monthly payment has become as natural as breathing.  The present generation differs from its predecessors in dedicating most of its income to contractual payments before earning it.  Whereas the present-day housewife’s abiding anxiety is to keep the family credit alive, her mother operated almost wholly on a cash basis, although just as despairingly perhaps.”
>
>
> 1959: Used in the syndicated "Little Liz" cartoon with an image showing a man delivering his guitar to a pawn shop.  Chillicothe Gazette (Ohio), August 17, 1959, page 13:
>
>
> "The surest way to lose your shirt is to live off the cuff."
>
> [END]
>
>
> Pete Reitan
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org