"no. off" Origin

Your question made me think of the term "one off", a single custom made item. Googling "one off" returned

http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19961104

"The word stems from the British use of off in commerce to indicate a quantity of items produced at one time: "Please supply 500 off." A one-off, then, was an item produced only once, and the current usage is a figurative application of this technical sense."

and

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-one4.htm

"This seems to have begun in foundry work, or a similar trade, in which items were cast off a mould or from a pattern ("We'll have 20 off that pattern and 500 off that other one".) An example is in a book of 1947 by James Crowther and Richard Whiddington, Science at War: "Manufacturers found it very difficult to give up mass production, in order to make the 200 or so sets 'off'.""

slo

Thank you Sloco, that's exactly what I was looking for. I never thought to google it.

Much appreciated.

regards,

tony

This looks like the fourth law of misuse of grammar by engineers.

The first is using the Grocer's Apostrophe.

The second is the misuse of "it's" and "its".

The third is the missing semicolon.

Thank you,

She's always picking those out as well.

regards,

tony

I'm an engineer - and I'm always picking those out as well!! - along with the misuse of less when the correct word is fewer (less sugar, fewer cubes); and computer programmes that won't take notice of the fact that I've set the default language to English English, and then autocorrect colour to color and authorise to authorize.

See http://www.eatsshootsandleaves.com/ - the paperback version has a punctuation repair kit with it...I bet your girlfriend would love it! (I would).

Mind you, it's not just engineers that get it wrong...I have embarressed dining companions by pointing out apostrophe errors to waiters/waitresses. It's the "but it doesn't really matter, you knew what I meant" attitude that gets me, particularly as sometimes what they've written is patently not what they meant and thye're so stupid (or badly educated) that they can't see it even when you explain it to them.

Humpty Dumpties all of them!!

English Rose, you seem to be one of those exceptional engineers who prove (as in test to proof-strength) the rule which states that engineers abuse the English language. It's a pleasure to find another of my tribe.

My particular bete noir of incorrect word usage is when people say they are choosing "between" three or more alternatives. They are actually choosing among the available options, unless they first narrow the field to two and only two choices.

Greengrocer's Apostrophes are ubiquitous in school lunch menus. But when they show up on the menu board at the university Faculty Club, and my professorial host thinks I'm being anal-retentive (which does have a hyphen) to mention it to the headwaiter, something is seriously wrong with the state of education.

Anna

Anna, thank you for the compliment.

My use of English was shaped partly by good solid primary school (7 -11yrs) education, a mother insistant that I "talk properly" and the reading of well-written books in conjunction with a good dictionary! OK, I confess, I also read the dictionary; not much of a plot, mind you...

The comment about Latin speakers (by Guest) reminds me that, as much as I love Dilbert and admire Scott Adams, for me, the humour in his randomly generated management-speak section was ruined by the repeated use of split infinitives.

I know that you underatand that ultimately, the purpose of language, written or spoken, is to convey the thoughts of one person to others. Without an agreed format, the meaning will be lost. Read (again?) the passage in Alice in Wonderland where Humpty Dumpty refuses to use words for their accepted meaning - no-one has any idea what he's actually trying to convey; remember that this was a satire on (I think) politicians of the time.

Also, and I admit this may be a bit of intellectual snobbery, I find that if someone (a native speaker that is) fails to use the language correctly, I trust their judgement less. This is related to their willingness to attend to details and be rigorous and exact. This is a subconscious thing; I notice that I am doing it rather than actively think "this person has to be watched". I used to work with a colleague with dyslexia; he would ask me to check some documents before sending them, precisely because he knew other people also have this sort of reaction. The type of mistakes he habitually made did give an insight into his personality. And BTW, he was one of the most detail orientated, pedantic engineers I know!!

So, correct usage IS important as is spelling, since it is through the spelling that the history of a word, and thus its meaning, can be determined.

Ah, I was quite correct. We are two of a kind. Dictionaries don't actually *need* to have a plot when they have all those fascinating words, their meanings, origins and pronunciations (with variants).

But re. split infinitives. Contrived and awkward constructions to avoid them is the sort of prissiness up with which I do not put. Scott Adams did nothing more or less than hold a documentary microphone up to the "Voice of the Manager" in his management-speak pieces. Split infinitives, malapropisms, garbled TAL's (three letter acronyms) and all.

If you are an intellectual snob, I'd have to admit to being another. I wrote off a 6 Sigma consulting firm once, after the first 20 Powerpoint slides they showed us had more than 10 spelling or other obvious typos in them.

I have an e-mail friend with serious dyslexia, and I sometimes find it painful to not fix his spelling when replying to his messages. Though, becaue it's just quick and informal exchanges, I asked him not to worry about spell-and-grammar checking e-mail just to me, or to self-edit beyond what he normally does. It has meant several times that we've had to go back and forth a bit to clarify meanings, because I thought he really was talkking about heather, and he was trying to explain something about a heifer. That he is English, works in an entirely different field, and is 20 years younger than I does not help us to understand the same word the same way. However, as a friend of mine put it in a different forum:

"Effective communication requires constant effort, but ineffective communication requires constant apologies." - Adam Pacio

I have another "technical terminology" question for anyone still paying attention. What is the origin and history of the term "soldering", and how do you pronounce it? In older sources, I sometimes have seen it spelled "souldering". When did the "U" go away? Short vowel or long? Does anyone pronounce the "L"?

Anna

Hi AnnafromA2, I know I am a bit late to this discussion but you asked,

"I have another "technical terminology" question for anyone still paying attention. What is the origin and history of the term "soldering", and how do you pronounce it? In older sources, I sometimes have seen it spelled "souldering". When did the "U" go away? Short vowel or long? Does anyone pronounce the "L"?"

Well in Australia its pronounced sol-der-ing and not sod-er-ing as it is in the USA. As for the U I have never seen it and was unable to find a reference to that spelling in the dictionaries I have.

Another technical term that seems to persist is calling technical drawings and plans blue prints. I would doubt if many engineers and technical people that are alive today have ever actually seen a blue print. For those that don't know the origin of the term relates to the way copies of the master drawings were made. Once a plan was finalized a sheet of transparent linen, later paper, was placed over the original pencil drawing and the image was traced using ink. To produce the working drawings a sheet of paper that turns blue when exposed to light was place under the transparency and the sandwich exposed to light. The end result was a negative working blue print where the paper that was exposed to light turned blue and the area covered by the ink remained white.

Since we are talking about the word police, one of my pet hates is the statement,

All of a sudden.

Since sudden is an adjective it's pretty hard to have all of one. The correct term is actually suddenly and ever time I hear the incorrect terminology I shudder as it reminds me of when I was at school and the bruised knuckles that followed said infraction.

Thanks for the clarification - I was trying to work out how else one could pronounce sol-der-ing. I didn't realise the US used a different one. UK, unsurprisingly, uses the same pronunciation as Australia.

I have - seen blue prints that is. They were still in every day use when I started my engineering career in a shipyard in the NW of England - and as that was only in 1987, I'm not that old! The first thing we were trained to do was produce pencil drawings and then trace them. I can still remember the very pungent smell of newly printed drawings, and the pleasure of watching a job well done as the girls (and it was mostly girls) who worked in the department expertly folded the drawings, not needing the marks in order to get it right. Such a contrast to the engineers I worked for, who even with the folds already in the paper, were unable to put a drawing away correctly! For those who haven't seen them, it does matter which way you fold an A0 drawing, as you should end up with an A4 "package" with the drawing number, always found in a block on the bottom RH corner, at the top. Following the original folds meant that the package stayed flat. It was a bit like folding a map, but with a little origami thrown in!

Tracers and blue print girls - two occupations that will never come again.

As for the continued use of the phrase, it's my understanding that it now means "originals" or "first generation" as in "Concord was the blueprint for all subsequent supersonic passenger jets". I haven't heard it used in any engineering firm recently, in fact even at the shipyard we called them drawings, not blueprints....

All of a sudden...

Yes, I know it's not grammatically correct, but it builds tension and suspense when telling ghost stories in a different way to the more shocking SUDDENLY. With "suddenly", the surprise is on that word, but the "all of a sudden", said in that dark, slow voice in which ghost stories should be told, moves the jump point to the action: "All of a sudden....from the cupboard...the grumplekin LEAPT onto Lizzie's head". It's a sort of verbal marker, which wouldn't work so well in print, so should probably be confined to live story telling.

Hi, English Rose,

"I have - seen blue prints that is. They were still in every day use when I started my engineering career in a shipyard in the NW of England - and as that was only in 1987,"

I find that very interesting, I was a cadet engineer starting back in the late 1970s. The prints were still done in the exactly same manner but the paper produced a positive image with black lines on a white background. I wonder why the newer technology wasn't being used where you were working?

"Yes, I know it's not grammatically correct, but it builds tension and suspense when telling ghost stories"

How about this

It was a cold, clear night that was so deathly still that his heartbeat clearly echoed in his ears. The moon had just risen above the horizon and was casting long ethereal shadows, on the knee deep mist, all of a sudden an unforeseen tap on his shoulder invoked that most primitive emotion, should he flee or should he fight?

OR

It was a cold, clear night that was so deathly still that his heartbeat clearly echoed in his ears. The moon had just risen above the horizon and was casting long ethereal shadows, on the knee deep mist. suddenly an unforeseen tap on his shoulder invoked that most primitive emotion, should he flee or should he fight?

Some how the first one just doesn't seem to cut it with me, but then it's a personal response.

LOL!

I didn't say that "suddenly" shouldn't ever be used, just that there were times when "all of a sudden" built the tension more satisfactorily.

As to the blue prints - I worked in a UK shipyard. Nuff said.

Given the level of war lend-lease repayments (from Encounters I and II) being made to the US, is it any wonder there'd been little investment? Plus the more recent upsurge in Far East shipyards that could build bigger, quicker and cheaper had removed a lot of the high end income (it had been 10+ years since the last civilian ship had been through the yard). The rest of the working practices were similarly stuck in the 1950s (or before?).

Hello Masu and English Rose,

My query about the pronouciation (and spelling) of soldering stems from a discussion I had last week with an Irish friend educated in the UK. He reported that some clients in Boston had trouble understanding him when he referred to the process as "soul-der-ing". My response was that the only US-ans I knew who usually pronounced the L in that word were Texans, many of whom say "saul-der-ing" (I once worked for Texas Instruments. I'm better now, really.) and that no-one I had heard pronounced the vowel as a long "O".

It's curious that all the Commonwealth countries but Canada pronounce it one way, and the US and Canada do it differently. I wonder why that is? My friend wondered where the "L" had gone. To which my response was, of course, " 'Ell if I know."

As to blue prints, I have worked with both the "negative" white-on-blue kind, and with diazo prints (blue on white), both of which are produced in a photographic process requiring ammonia. (Pheeehw!) I was very pleased when all the print rooms where I worked converted to large-format xerographic reproduction in 1982 or 83, IIRC. I still have my father's Rapidiograpgh inking pens around here somewhere, which saw a lot of use when he worked as a designer and detailer (back around the time I was born...). But I am just barely old enough to have had all my formal instruction in drafting require the use of pencils and ink rather than computers.

English Rose says, "the pleasure of watching a job well done as the girls (and it was mostly girls) who worked in the department expertly folded the drawings, not needing the marks in order to get it right. Such a contrast to the engineers I worked for, who even with the folds already in the paper, were unable to put a drawing away correctly! For those who haven't seen them, it does matter which way you fold an A0 drawing, as you should end up with an A4 "package" with the drawing number, always found in a block on the bottom RH corner, at the top. Following the original folds meant that the package stayed flat. It was a bit like folding a map, but with a little origami thrown in!

Tracers and blue print girls - two occupations that will never come again."

The "print room" I worked with last still had almost all female machine operators and drawing folders, though it would be extremely politically incorrect to refer to them as "girls".

I know from experience that it's possible to train young (male) engineers to fold or re-fold drawings so that they fit in the file drawers correctly. With the ID block in the lower RH corner, and the file-reference block at the top RH, corner, just at the fold line. Certainly all the co-op engineer trainees who passed through my hands mastered it before I let them move on. The young women seem to "get it" almost without trying, but that may say more about the sort of young women who become engineers than anything about male vs. female skills in paper handling. It's also possible to train males to fold fitted bedsheets; I have three sons, and they all know how, thought the youngest two don't have arms long enough (yet) to fold the larger sheets.

As to archaic work practices in shipyards, my husband was originally trained as a naval architect/marine engineer. So we still tour shipyards when we travel to places that have them. Workng conditions and practices aren't much better anywhere in the US, with the occasional exception of a boatyard that produces competitive sail yachts, or high-end luxury motor yachts.

And now I need to go cope further with the effects of an ice storm.

Anna

I've always understood it to be no. off the production line...which ties into slo's foundry usage. It is, in fact, a piece of technical jargon or idiom

So that batch consisted of 500 off (of) line 1 and 200 off (of) line 3. Line 2 produced a batch of 3 off. Technically, the "off" in the last senstence is redundant, whereas the "of" is optional in the first.

You can explain to your partner that the "off" is not a mis-spelt "of" - one or other is often sublimated in speech for convenience - try saying

500-off of the green ones

200-off of the red ones etc etc.

In this case it's easier (and more correct) to omit the "off". However, when talking about capacity and order quantities, the "off" is used.

When I want a regular consignment of 200-off a month, I would never want to say 200-of.

Thank you English Rose,

regards,

tony

This put me in mind of Henery Higgings in My Fair Lady. " The British have been speaking English poorly and the Americans haven't been speaking English for years." or something to that nature. Well how true it is.

p.s. American here.

ARE YOU GUYS SERIOUS? I CAN BARELY UNDERSTAND THE PRINTED MATERIAL I GET DUE TO THE WORLD MARKET. I WORK WITH GUYS WHO MIGHT AS WELL BE SPEAKING LATIN. THERE SHOULD BE A REQUIREMENT FOR TECHS AND ENGINEERS TO BE ABLE TO SPEAK WELL ENOUGH FOR POOR ENGLISH SPEAKERS LIKE ME.

There's no need to shout, dear boy.

And you have been rumbled - you obviously have been sufficiently educated to understand that the correct form is "well enough" and not "good enough"; this latter is the phrase that poor English speakers use.