Re: "par coeur" origin

Phillip Mackin wrote:

Paul J Kriha wrote:
TOF <fran_beta@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1145397038.611456.275980@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
retrosorter wrote:
TOF wrote:

The joining of the word "'off" with "by" does seem a tad unusual and I
can't think offhand of another example in English where this occurs.
Does it in essence represent a joining if the idiomatic verb ""know
off' with ''by heart'?
I doubt it. Where I come from (Australia) I've not heard someone split
"off" from "by" (although the "off" is occasionally omitted.)

Oh really?
"By now, you must be able to recite it off, you bloody drongo, by heart."


This construction with a double preposition does happen a lot, and it's
right that in most the two can be separated, like in "I went out---to
the shops", but I'm not at all convinced that in this case two can be
separated. It really is "learned it---off by heart", and not "learned it
off---by heart"

In order not to have to just past it off as an idiomatic expression, I
tried to think of some other examples, but the only one I could think of
off the top of my head was "I got it off of the internet", which isn't
really mainstream usage.

Why do you think "off of" isn't common as dirt? (What it isn't is
parallel to "off by.")
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@xxxxxxx
.

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