Off base
A phrase that's hard to picture
A BUSINESS BLOGGER was quoted in the Globe, a couple of weeks ago, on his company's approach to "building concepts based off insights and observation."
We won't quibble with "building concepts" - it's a business blog, after all. But one reader was startled by the notion of basing something off, rather than on, its foundation. "Indeed," he wrote, "the physical root [of the term] is to build on top of a base, the base being the lowest part of a structure."
So true. And yet, my correspondent had found zillions of Google hits for "based off" (though some, surely, are legitimate uses like "based off the coast of Greece"). So I was prepared when I heard it myself last week, in a radio interview with New Hampshire primary voters: One of them said Mitt Romney would probably be good for the economy, "based off his business background."
Language changes are often mysterious, and this one is more mysterious than some. If we can say based on, based upon, and based in, why bother to invent the figuratively incongruous based off?
The new bored of, as a substitute for bored with or bored by, is just as unnecessary, of course; but it's not bizarre, since bored isn't based on (yes, on) a concrete image. If bored of were the version history had handed us, it would seem just as reasonable as tired of does.
Even centered around, though anathema to the centered on diehards, makes sense if you're visualizing a celebration centered around a campfire, or a town centered around its cathedral.
But a base is a concrete thing; the base of a lamp or a statue or a pyramid is the part it sits on. Based on means "built upon" or "starting from" a foundation; changing the on to off dims its metaphorical light.
The dimness is visible, these days, even in mainstream newspapers. But the earliest citation in the Nexis news database comes from a 1979 story in The
As for what prompted the change, your guess is as good as anyone's. When a young reviewer says a movie is "based off the graphic novel," is he suggesting a more tenuous connection than "based on" implies - something more like "inspired by" or "taking off from"? Or did athletes and sportswriters adopt it because based off sounded more vigorous, or casual, than based on? It would be nice to have a clue, but we'll probably never know.
. . .
WIRED FOR GRAMMAR: The new season of "The Wire," with its daily newspaper setting, has already stirred up a usage debate. On last Sunday's opener, a young reporter was told she mustn't say "people were evacuated." Said one crusty editor: "A building can be evacuated. To evacuate a person is to give that person an enema."
But was he right? Ben Mathis-Lilley, writing at New York magazine's entertainment blog, doubted the Old Curmudgeon Editor's wisdom. "We're pretty sure you can evacuate a person or a group of people," he said, "and so Curmudgeon seemed like an ill-informed, bullying blowhard."
The dictionary confirmed Mathis-Lilley's skepticism, and so did Peter Sokolowski, editor at large for Merriam-Webster, who explained that the Curmudgeon is decades out of date. "This was indeed a usage controversy until about WWII, by which time the 'remove (people)' sense had taken firm hold," he wrote at the blog. "It was actually entered in the Sixth Collegiate Dictionary back in 1949 - showing the boost this usage received during the war years."
The show's creator, David Simon - once a reporter for the real Baltimore Sun - also weighed in, confirming that the incident came from his own experience. "I plead guilty to an anachronism if indeed that is what it now is," he wrote.
Coming tonight, the proper use of nauseous? Or will they bravely grapple with convince vs. persuade?
. . .
THE LAST WORD: On Word of the Year, that is; the season wrapped up Jan. 4 - as always, too late for our deadline - when the American Dialect Society, at its annual meeting in Chicago, made its picks for 2007.
The top winner was the reasonable but tame subprime (while the previously staid Merriam-Webster went with w00t; go figure). Most Creative was Googleganger, the person with your name who shows up when you Google yourself. Most Useful was the prefix green- (as in greenwashing), which unaccountably beat wrap rage, the emotion many of us experienced while trying to open gifts in human-proof packaging. And there's more, much more, at americandialect.org.
E-mail Jan Freeman at freeman@globe.com. For past columns, go to boston.com/ideas.
