Off of

This looks fun: off of.

I have a few close friends and relatives who use ‘off of’, as in ‘take your feet off of the chair’, and others who don’t. I feel instinctively that it is incorrect, while those I know and respect use it all the time. A Google search raised a few questions – clearly I am not alone in feeling interested in this point, and more than a few people are distinctly worried about the phrase.

‘How can I explain to people that the phrase off of is grammatically incorrect?’ asks a writer to English Language & Usage (http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/619/how-can-i-explain-to-people-that-the-phrase-off-of-is-grammatically-incorrect); answers given include attempts to find analogies with other phrases (optimistically irrelevant because this seldom works with English), and an awareness that American English uses the form more than British English. This may lead us to the idea that it is an Early Modern English form, and true enough the online Merriam-Webster dictionary gives the first documentation of the form as 1567. Merriam-Webster also states that ‘The of is often criticized as superfluous, a comment that is irrelevant because off of is an idiom’ (fair enough, so is the f*****g in ‘abso-f*****g-lutely’; I’m not sure that claiming something as an idiom gets us anywhere). 

I note that the OED online does not recognise the phrase when queried, but the 1998 Modern English Usage (R W Burchfield) refers to several examples in the OED, beginning with one from Shakespeare. Burchfield does state clearly though that the phrase is 'still strongly present in the language of the less well educated but is indisputably non-standard in Britain' . Does that 'still' imply 'despite the best efforts of the British educational system' or 'a sadly obsolescent dialect form'? Burchfield goes on to note that all the twentieth century quotations in the OED are from 'sources representing non-standard speech', and Webster's College Dictionary (1991) states that it is 'widespread in speech, including that of the educated ... but is rare in edited writing'.

From earlier authorities I can find no references in the copies of Lindley Murray, William Cobbett or Henry Alford that are to hand, but an early edition of Nathaniel Bailey's Dictionary (1733 I think) gives the spectacular typo: 
Of - belonging to
Of - from 

Should I gently guide my children away from ‘off of’, as a creeping return-invasion from across the Atlantic? Or should I take comfort from the no-nonsense approach of Jane Strauss’s The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation:

Correct:
Take your shoes off the bed.

Incorrect:
Take your shoes off of the bed.

(And should that be Jane Strauss’ rather than Jane Strauss’s?)

http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar/probPrep.asp

I was very relieved about a year ago to find that ‘chronic’, which as a child and adolescent I, along with all my school-chums, used to mean ‘bad’, was seen as Essex dialect usage by the Rev Andrew Clark (Echoes of the Great War: The Diary of the Reverend Andrew Clark, 1914-19). Is ‘off of’ a UK regional dialect usage? Though it does not appear specifically in Edward Moor's suffolk Words and Phrases (1823) there is the entry ‘Of’ with the gloss ‘We use this preposition in, I think, an unusual way – redundantly – “I missed of him” – “Taste of it” – “He is leaving of him”.’

This is promising. East Anglian migrants took several worthy things to America – clapboard housing, the Mayflower (built in Harwich), and I suspect the ‘d’ instead of ‘t’ in ‘beautiful'.

Discussion around the dinner table considered whether it is easier to say ‘take your feet off of the chair’ than ‘take your feet off the chair’. It is, but why? Why should it be easier to say two words than one word, especially if the two-word phrase contains the one word of the other alternative? Admittedly it is easier to say ‘I was like’ than ‘I said’ – there’s an unavoidable hiatus between ‘I’ and ‘said’ which is elided away in ‘I was like’. The dinner-table consensus was that somehow we manage to elide ‘off of’ to make it feel faster and more comfortable than just ‘of’. But I would not like to allow ease of pronunciation prime role as the ruler of language change.

Seventeenth century white face make-up

I have often wondered what was the composition of the white make-up used by Elizabeth I and court ladies of the seventeenth century. Was it a form of lead, as frequently thought? These two recipes come from Delights for Ladies, 1636.

To anoint the face and to make it white 

Take fresh bacon grease, and the whites of eggs, and stamp them together, and a little powder of bays and anoint your face therewith, and it will make it white.

A white fucus or beauty for the face 

The jaw bones of a hog or sow well burnt, beaten and searced through a fine searce [sieve], and after, ground upon a porphyrie or serpentine stone, is an excellent fucus, being laid on with the oil of white poppy.

The second basically creates a layer of white calcium phosphate on the skin; ground jaw-bones of pigs seem to have been a common source for white face-makeup, though the term ‘fucus’ was applied to colours other than white, and in fact derived from a Latin term applied to red dye. The ‘oil of white poppy’ was perhaps an infusion of petals in oil; I think the lard-based make-up would have been a cheaper option. The link between animal products and cosmetics is pretty well entrenched here. Little refinement is involved – the final product is removed from the dead animal by more stages in the second recipe, but it contains only two ingredients. You could not avoid knowing that you were basically slapping the ashes of pig bones on your face.

An ointment for lice in the eybrows

Take one apple roasted and cleansed, quicksilver killed [neutralised] with spittle, mix them well and anoint.

Cosmeticks, or the Beautifying Parts of Physick, Johann Wecker, 1660

I worked in a school once where a teacher came into the staffroom during morning break and told us about a child whose hair appeared to be moving of its own accord. I assumed at the time that it was a case of headlice. I hope so. I have never heard of lice infesting the eyebrows, but I suppose there is no reason why they should not.

‘Killing’ mercury with spittle presumably involves briskly whisking the two fluids to get them to mingle. But would this in fact neutralise the mercury? Spittle can have the opposite effect, that of activating mercury in tooth-fillings – see www.hugginsappliedhealing.com/digestive-disturbances.php in which Dr H Huggins points out that chewing stimulates the releasing of enzymes in saliva, and at the same time stimulates the release of mercury from tooth-fillings. Wecker occasionally specifies 'fasting spittle', but does not in this recipe. The mercury/saliva mix may have increased the absorbtion rate of the mercury via the skin. It cannot have done the lice much good, so with luck the whole mess would have worked and been removed fairly quickly.

A lost Victorian phrase?

'Not but what'.

This looks like a familiar phrase, but I don’t think I had ever come across it until I recently started reading the novels of Anthony Trollope. ‘Not but what’ I don’t think I shall start to use the phrase. Still confused?

This is from Phineas Finn, (1869)

"You should be more gentle with her. You should give her time to find out whether she likes you or not."

"She has known me all her life, and has found that out long ago. Not but what you are right. I know you are right. …" 

I still don’t think I would get it from that. Try this quote from Barchester Towers (1857):

'Yes,' continued Ethelbert; not at all understanding why a German professor should be contemptible in the eyes of an Oxford don. 'Not but what the name is best earned at Oxford. In Germany the professors do teach; at Oxford, I believe they only profess to do so, and sometimes not even that. You'll have those universities of yours about your ears soon, if you don't consent to take a lesson from Germany.'

It appears twice in Phineas Finn, twice in Phineas Redux (1874) and four times in both The Kellys and O’Kellys (1848) and The Eustace Diamonds (1873).  But you won’t find the phrase in The Warden (1855), or The Duke’s Children (1880); nor, curiously, in He Knew He Was Right (1869).

Dickens uses it four times in Great Expectations (1861) but not at all in Pickwick Papers (1837), Nicholas Nickleby (1839), A Christmas Carol (1843), Dombey and Son (1848), Bleak House (1853), or Little Dorrit (1857). And not in Our Mutual Friend (1865) or The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870).

(In all of these I am giving the year of the publication of the final instalment of the serialised form.)

George Eliot uses it four times in Middlemarch (1872) – though I can’t say I noticed it on a recent reading – and a massive eight times in The Mill On The Floss (1860). It’s there twice in Adam Bede (1859), but not in Daniel Deronda (1876). You won’t find it in the novels of George Meredith (between 1856 and 1910), but you will find it three times in Mary Barton (1848), five times in North and South (1855) and an impressive eleven times in Wives and Daughters (1865), all by Elizabeth Gaskell.

Hardy uses it once in The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886):

"He worked his way up from nothing when 'a came here; and now he's a pillar of the town. Not but what he's been shaken a little to-year about this bad corn he has supplied in his contracts."

And it appears three times in Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891), but not at all in Jude the Obscure (1895). H G Wells does not use it in The Island of Dr Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897) or The War of the Worlds (1898).

So it seems to have enjoyed some usage in literary English from the 1840s. Not but what I don’t recall reading it in any twentieth-century work (and I would like to hear of quoted instances). Not but what I looked for it in the OED. I couldn’t find it. Not but what I’ll go on looking.

For an uncomb (or sore finger)

Shred one handful of smallage very small, and put to it one spoonful of honey, the yolk of an egg, add a little wheat flower to make it thick; then spread it on a cloth, and lay it to the sore twice a day.

The Queens Closet Opened, W M, 1696

Also called an ‘income’, an ‘uncome’, an ‘ancome’, an ‘uncomb’ was probably originally something that ‘came on’, a visitation. In A Closet for Ladies and Gentlewomen (1602) it is spelled ‘andcom’, ‘andcome’ and ‘andicome’, of which the OED states ‘The later spellings ancombe, andicomb, show that the word was no longer understood’. The OED ascribes a northern or Scottish origin to the term, but in the sense of ‘something coming on’, a challenge, or something that has to be dealt with, it is closely liked to the very modern, and very southern ‘bring it on’. ‘On’ in the sense of excitement or challenge, beyond just ‘happening’, is seen in ‘game on’, ‘you’re on’ (i.e. ‘I accept your challenge’), perhaps even ‘don’t you know there’s a war on’.

Meanwhile the OED defines an uncomb as ‘An ulcerous swelling rising unexpectedly’ (Wright); a boil; an imposthume; by some later authors applied to a whitlow.’ I wonder how my doctor would react to my complaint that I was suffering from an imposthume or a whitlow. Mind you, a GP friend of mine did refer recently to somebody having a quinsy. It is so easy to believe that the first documented instance of a word can be traced – theoretically you can’t trace the first spoken instance, but the earliest written case has to exist somewhere. But can we ever say that a word – for example, ague, dropsy or flux – has died out? Saying ‘wireless’ in the eighties marked you out as a fogey (I know; I tried it), but we hardly give the word a second thought now.

By the way, smallage was angelica (wild celery) or water parsley, an infusion of which was used to wash and heal ulcers; with the protein of the egg and the antibacterial and antiseptic qualities of honey, this could have been quite helpful.

How to put on a little weight, where necessary

from Artificial Embellishments, Thomas Jeamson, 1665

To make the body or any part thereof plump and fat, that was before too lean

In a contrary extreme to corpulency are those breathing skeletons that carry Lent in their face as a Christmas feast, and look so meagerly that their confessors, since they have nothing left but skin and bones, dare not for fear of a solecism enjoin them penance to mortify the flesh. No part about them thrives so well as their bones, and these look as elastic as if they had eaten up the flesh and were ready to leap off the skin to fall upon others. Truly, Ladies, such leanness is a ravenous guest, and will keep you bare to maintain him; if you have a mind to be rid of his company, observe these prescriptions following, and I dare engage he shall not long disturb you.

Let your chamber in the summer time be kept something cool and moist with violets, lilies, or the like fresh flowers; before you eat, chafe the body till it look red, then walk and stir about some housewife’s employment. When you eat take nothing that is salt or sharp, bitter or too hot, but let your meats be sweet and of good nourishment, such as fresh eggs, mutton, veal, capon, and for three hours after meat take your recreation in dancing, singing, discoursing, etc. use some baths twice a month, and in the mornings this electuary:

Sweet almonds, pistachio nuts, white poppyseed, butter and sugar; beat these up into the form of an electuary [medicinal paste]; take thereof morning and evening the quantity of a walnut; it quickly fattens and gives a good complexion.

The idea of ‘elasticity’ was of something that would spontaneously expand, so the image is of the bones expanding from eating the flesh, and then leaping off to consume flesh elsewhere; bizarre, and quite disturbing, as is the next offered recipe for putting on flesh:

Take twelve or thirteen lizards or newts, cut off their heads and tails, boil them and let the water stand to cool; take off the grease, mix it with wheat flour, feed a hen therewith till she be fat, then kill her and eat her; this often used will make you exceeding fat. Keep it for a rare and true secret.

Tennis balls used as a measure, 1580

A playster for an ague 

Take as much stone pitch to the value of a Tennis bal, and a spoonefull of Tarre, and a penniworth of Treacle and Rosen, to the value of a Tennis ball, and a spoonefull of Hony, boyle it over the fier in a little kettle, and stirre it all togeather till it be well melted, then take a new sheapes skinne, and make holes in it with a bodkin, and spreade the medicine on the fleshye side of the skinne, and lay it to the ache as whot as you may.

An Hospitall for the Diseased, by T C, London 1580

Rosen would be resin, and 'whot' is 'hot'. 'Value' here is presumably used to mean 'size' or 'weight', since the monetary value of what is being measured is explicit - ' a penniworth of treacle and rosen'. This is the earliest example I have come across of an item of specifically sports equipment being used as a non-metaphorical referent outside the field of sport - it's not uncommon to see distances measured by lances or arrows, which would have been used as sporting items, but they are primarily weapons. There's an assumption too in the reference that people dispensing medicine would have a good idea of the size and weight of a tennis ball.