Ben has been observing the transit of British English words, pronunciations and grammar for 13 years now at his blog Not One-Off Britishisms. So, to celebrate his book, let's look at one-off, the Britishism in his blog title. One-off can be used as a noun or an adjective to refer to something happens once and won't happen again.
Ben's blog evaluates previously British-only expressions that seem to be catching on in American English, and one-off was one he first covered in 2011. In the book, he gives more historical context for both the British and American usage. Google Books charts (nicely redrawn by Eric Hansen in the book) provide a handy view of the trajectory of British words in American publications over time.
In the case of one-off, the first known occurrence of it is in 1930s Britain. It seems to take off in Britain in the 1960s, then shows up in the US in the 1990s, picking up speed as it goes along. Here's the the relevant bit of the book:
He also categori{s/z}es each expression as to how entrenched it has become in AmE. In the case of one-off, it's "taking hold."
While Yagoda keeps track of the migration of Britishisms, my (self-appointed) job on this blog is to give American English translations. One-of-a-kind seems a good candidate But is one-of-a-kind American English or General English? And is one-off displacing it at all?
My first stop is the Corpus of Global Web-Based English, whose data comes from 2012:
Now, we don't always hyphenate one of a kind (it depends on how it's being used in a sentence), but this chart at least gives a sense that one-of-a-kind is used proportionally less in BrE, since it has one-off to use instead. In the same corpus, unhyphenated one of a kind is still "more North American," but more gently so: 490 US hits to 320 GB ones.
All of the Oxford English Dictionary quotations for one-of-a-kind are North American too—the first one from 1954 by American art critic Arthur C. Danto. (The first unhyphenated one is from 1977.) The OED does not, however, mark it as an American expression.
Now, one-off and one-of-a-kind aren't exactly the same thing. One-off has a more temporal connotation: it's happened once (and won't again). That said, you could say, for example, that a person is a one-off or one of a kind meaning that they're a unique kind of person.
So is the existence of one-off hurting one-of-a-kind? It happens to be easier to look at the unhyphenated version in Google Ngrams and the hyphenated one in the Corpus of Historical American English, so let's look at both.
First, we can see that one of a kind has been increasing fairly steadily in both AmE and BrE, but it's definitely more American. One-off's appearance on the American scene has not caused one of a kind to become less frequent.
First, we can see that one of a kind has been increasing fairly steadily in both AmE and BrE, but it's definitely more American. One-off's appearance on the American scene has not caused one of a kind to become less frequent.
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(I wonder what proportion of the hits for more unique are just people complaining or warning against more unique.)
Anyhow, congratulations to Ben Yagoda on the success of his blog and the publication of his book!
And so many thanks for this kind dedication:
And so many thanks for this kind dedication:
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ReplyDeleteI was shocked when I saw "BESPOKE" in the USA giant Hardware store, Lowes, this Summer! The Brits are re-invading! The USA has been "custom" this or that - never "bespoke"! I only saw "bespoke" in British Home and Garden magazines, way back in the 1990's. I had to figure out what it meant, back then. If I hear/see another Brit say how "Autumn" is the way to say the season in English, I will flip! :D The American "Fall" is most English, and the English emigrants from so long ago kept up the original word. My knowledge of Spanish, and its "Otoño", Italian "autunno", French "automne" is a the obvious give-away that the supposed "most English way of saying the season" is actually the most "Latin way of saying" it! My English grandparents never said chuffed and gobsmacked. I didn't start hearing it until around 2000. One more thing, Lynne... can we arrange the funeral for the verb "are"? Everyone, even the seemingly most educated person, has been "There's" and even outright "is" for plural amounts! I attribute this to a lazy tongue and mouth that does not want to take the extra effort to formulate "There are". :p But, still, "are" is dying a quick death.
ReplyDelete1. You know your audience, Lynne! I was fired up there to be indignant about "more unique", which is almost as inflammatory to sensitive readers as "nearly infinite".
ReplyDelete2. My copy of Yagoda's book arrived several weeks ago, but I can't report on whether it's any good because, frustratingly, I immediately mislaid it. (Or, to absolve myself of involvement, it 'went missing').
3. I'm surprised that you say the term 'one-off' was first recorded in Britain in the 1930s. I always assumed it derived from the units of quantity in old-fashioned inventories [methylated spirit, 12 gal; strong sisal rope, 30 yd; tarred canvas, 12 sq ft, pith helmets, 6 off; elephant gun, 1 off]... which surely must predate the 1930s.
Like Grhm above, I, too, was all set to complain about "more unique" . My husband always growls if someone on television says "very unique", too....
ReplyDeleteI don't think I'd hyphenate "one of a kind", and I'm trying to work out when I'd use "one-off" or "one off" as an adjective; I tend to us it, if at all, as a verb: "We are going to Xs for Christmas, but it will be a one-off, as they are moving next year", or something like that.
And having said that, I found I did indeed use it as a verb, without even thinking about this post until I heard myself say it. Context was the pneumonia jab that, as old people, my spouse and I are now entitled to. "It's not annual, it's a one-off, like the shingles jab. Only that was a two-off, but you know what I mean!"
DeleteIn my (American) idiolect a person cannot be a one-off. Only an event can be a one-off, so there's no overlap with "one of a kind" at all.
ReplyDeleteI first heard one-off in the 1980s when I moved from the inland desert to coastal California. But the usage was different, it didn't refer to events in my experience until later. The first context was in describing commercial establishments that were not units of a chain. Later it seemed to mean things that were not part of a series or sequence and so arrived at the meaning you seem to be using here.
ReplyDeleteI had no real idea that it was a Britishism. I just thought it was an alteration of "one of" which, which perhaps makes even less sense. :)
When they invented the phrase "one-off" they broke the mould. Or mold.
ReplyDeleteI don't have a word of the year for you, but I do have an untranslatable: "inside baseball language (or terminology)". I (BrE) am pretty sure I know what it means but I can't think of a good BrE equivalent.
ReplyDelete