When Did "One Off" Take Off?

[Lombro2]

But he couldn't have coined it himself... I just consulted a friend, same age as me, but in manufacturing and engineering, and he apparently coined the term "one off hamburger/hamburger bun".

He knew the phrase "one off" here in this "foreign" country in the 80s. So yes, it did exist here, just like you said it did in the good old mother country. Now I believe you.

He said "one off" refers to something that doesn't meet, or that exceeds, expectation. He uses it today to refer to bad hamburgers at his favorite fast food place. A "one off hamburger".

I think aberration is again the right word. So using the term for "aberration" seems to be the preferred choice of the people. Off the top of their heads. That makes sense because there's more chance of falling short than exceeding, or of making or doing something bad by mistake than of actually creating something good and unique. Especially a layperson, so to speak.

The emphasis on "unique" has sent other people down some rabbit holes. Without a pocket watch, of course!

[Lombro2]

So "one off instance" existed prior to 1992. Does that really mean anything as far as the source for the phrase in the Diary?

I've looked at a couple of the pre-1992 examples given on Google Books, in context. Both of them refer to quantity. Nothing unique about the instance, nothing aberrant. It's just a one time incident as in one tax added onto another as opposed to 10 added on. So the usage of "one off" had hardly changed in a century, at least in published print.

Why? Is it because people who write journals, and politicians who speak in parliament, are not writing or talking about aberrant things? I think so. They're writing about quantities and speaking about hard facts.

It's the common folk who would use the term "one off" for aberrations and would coin or use a phrase like "one off instance" for an aberrant event rather than a one time event. Good thinking, Michael Barrett! Unfortunately, you could have pulled this one off in 1888 as much a 1992.

[Iconoclast]

It's the common folk who would use the term "one off" for aberrations and would coin or use a phrase like "one off instance" for an aberrant event rather than a one time event. Good thinking, Michael Barrett! Unfortunately, you could have pulled this one off in 1888 as much a 1992.

Whilst this may well be true (we don't know), the point the Dark Lord of Utter Darkness is making is that the one example we have of this type of usage in the LVP is in Maybrick's scrapbook and he proposes that it is very unlikely that Maybrick was the first person on the planet to ever conjoin the notion of 'one-off' (strictly 'one off', of course) with that of an 'event'.

The obvious challenge with that otherwise reasonable thought is that we just can't know for certain now what was both possible and plausible parlance for a middle class Liverpudlian businessman in 1888/1889.

But can we even be certain that the author meant 'one-off instance' at all and didn't actually mean 'one 'off' instance'???

How can we ever know what the author actually meant or why he wrote that way?

[Herlock Sholmes]

But can we even be certain that the author meant 'one-off instance' at all and didn't actually mean 'one 'off' instance'???

Yes we can be 100% certain of this, Ike, in the fact that there is no such thing in the English language as an off instance, and never has been, but if there were such a thing it would have been expressed as "an off instance" not a one off instance (which is utterly meaningless and absurd), and the diary author literally defines the meaning of "one off instance" by explaining that "it would never happen again".

To challenge the clear, obvious and unequivocal meaning of "one off instance" in the diary seems to be to be a total admission of defeat on your part. Maybrick could never possibly have written such a thing.

[Iconoclast]

To challenge the clear, obvious and unequivocal meaning of "one off instance" in the diary seems to be to be a total admission of defeat on your part. Maybrick could never possibly have written such a thing.

Everything needs to be challenged, Herlock. Everything. When you don't, you simply built a battering-ram of assumptions which may do more harm than good.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Everything needs to be challenged, Herlock. Everything. When you don't, you simply built a battering-ram of assumptions which may do more harm than good.

Yes, I agree entirely Ike.

I have challenged it. I already told the result of my challenge. It's that there's no such thing as an off instance in the English language. And there wasn't in 1888. All you're doing is replacing one expression which didn't exist in 1888 with another.

When the diary author wrote of a "one off instance" he or she meant something that wasn't going to happen again. That's what it means. You can challenge it as much as you like but the result of the challenge has to be that this is the meaning.

[Lombro2]

The author could well have and probably did mean both an aberration, that would never happen again, or something that was “off” that never happened before and never happened after.

My “one off hamburger” friend, who was not told the context of my questions, told me he called the hamburger a “one off” to assure himself that this bad hamburger was not going to happen again so he could go back to the same reliable restaurant. And he coined this phrase and usage. Just like Maybrick or Barrett could have.

There’s no biggie here that warrants becoming a broken-record, ignoring other knowledgeable people who consider the alternative notion, that Maybrick can’t coin it, “bonkers”, or getting people censured for asking honest and relevant questions. I may have not been always 100% right in what I was saying along the way but this is the proper conclusion.

[Herlock Sholmes]

The author could well have and probably did mean both an aberration, that would never happen again, or something that was “off” that never happened before and never happened after.

My “one off hamburger” friend, who was not told the context of my questions, told me he called the hamburger a “one off” to assure himself that this bad hamburger was not going to happen again so he could go back to the same reliable restaurant. And he coined this phrase and usage. Just like Maybrick or Barrett could have.

There’s no biggie here that warrants becoming a broken-record, ignoring other knowledgeable people who consider the alternative notion, that Maybrick can’t coin it, “bonkers”, or getting people censured for asking honest and relevant questions. I may have not been always 100% right in what I was saying along the way but this is the proper conclusion.

Hi Lombro,

"one off hamburger" is not an expression. It's just the expression "one off" with a noun added after it. There are estimated to be 80,000 nouns in the English language. So you must think we can coin new one-off expressions every day of the week by simply adding a noun at the end of it.

For example, a rambutan is an exotic fruit. Have I just coined a new expression by referring to a one off rambutan?

Of course not.

And I don't know why you keep saying that Barrett could have coined the expression "one off instance". To the extent that "one off instance" is an expression (which it isn't - the expression is "one off") It was already an expression long before the diary appeared.

As for Maybrick he certainly couldn't have done it because "one off" didn't exist as an expression to mean something which would be unrepeated in 1888, so, it follows, "one off instance" is not something he could have formulated.

[Mike J. G.]

I could go for 'shits and giggles', Mike, but not if the Barretts were involved and presented their own handiwork to be researched and investigated seriously by the professionals. Anne has never come across to me as the 'shits and giggles' type - although she has certainly giggled nervously on occasion. I see her as a stone cold sober parent - in every sense - compared with her husband, but neither seemed to have any friends in common, let alone a shared sense of fun. Having their daughter Caroline no doubt kept them together and functioning before the diary reared its ugly head, but if they once had a similar sense of humour and used it to create the bloody thing, all trace of that humour was gone not long afterwards and the final ashes scattered. No gravestone with 'I told you I was ill' on it.

It would be hard to find a couple less suited in 1992 to having "a lark" on this scale.

But needs must when the devil drives, so if a theory collapses without the Barretts of Goldie Street to hold it up, then only the Barretts will do.

The devil in the detail can go to hell.

Love,

Caz
X

Hiya, Caz.

I'm honestly not tied to the idea that it's a Barrett hoax, tbh. The main problem we've got, whether we like it or not (and I know a few don't) is that the very reason we even have the Maybrick scrapbook is because of Mike Barrett. For better or worse, he introduced it to the world.

I have been fair in my posts to point out that the handwriting isn't Mike's. Do I think he was involved to some extent? It's very possible. While neither Mike nor Anne come across as the shits and giggles type, there was definitely an element of taking the piss in what they were both doing. Anne's, quite frankly, unbelievable stories on BBC radio Merseyside were as much of a giggle as anything contained in the scrapbook, IMO. She may have been telling the truth, but everything she said sounded so insincere to me, personally.

RJ made some good points regarding similarities between Anne's writing and the Maybrick diarist, though again, I'm not tied to her having written it. Either way, Maybrick didn't write in that scrapbook, and it's most definitely a hoax, but we don't know for what purpose and we likely never will.

Mike and Anne seemed to have an interest in sir Jim, though, maybe through Anne's tentative links to Florence? I dunno, but I don't think the story having been in her family is completely out of the realms of possibility, with Anne trying to get Mike to pen a story based around it, and him thinking he could potentially make more money out of putting it forward as genuine. I'm not totally opposed to something along those lines.

I'm open to those type of possibilities, very much so. I don't think we'll ever know, though, because the waters have been permanently muddied.

[Mike J. G.]

Hi Mike,

Obviously nobody could have named a victim in Manchester, whose name never appeared in the papers, for obvious reasons - whether she had existed or was invented to add colour to the diary. Had 'Sir Jim' added any more colour, by naming her Fanny By Gaslight Cradock, would it have helped?



There's a Maybrick crowd now? No wonder they are seen as some kind of threat to the Barrett Hoax believers. Or have they inadvertently given that impression themselves with their strenuous efforts to fight off all of two or three posters?

Love,

Caz
X

Allo again, Caz.

The issue is that the hoaxer has intentionally created a fictitious murder for which they don't have to bother including any sort of evidence for. Had a victim actually been named, potentially a clue about an unsolved murder in Manchester during the period, then that would undoubtedly add far more credibility to the tale, but the hoaxer is simply trying to get that same credibility without putting the effort in, and it shows.

Yeah, there's definitely a Maybrick crowd, I'm specifically talking about the ones who believe that sir Jim ain't the man to be blamed for nothing, or something like that...
I've come across more than just Ike and Jay, and I'm not necessarily including you into that crowd. It's not intended as an insult or a slur, either way.

I'm not in any crowd, personally. I simply don't buy into the Maybrick as Ripper yarn, and there's absolutely no credible evidence to suggest that I'm being a bit hasty. I take absolutely nothing on these boards seriously, and I hope others don't either, as it's all rather silly, ain't it? Certainly as far as sir Jim's diary is concerned. If anyone wants to throw me in the Barrett hoax crowd, then have at it, I'm not that bothered. My main stance is that Jim never wrote the scrapbook and he certainly wasn't the Ripper. Mike Barrett introduced us to that scrapbook, whether we choose to believe the many tales him and Anne told about its origin is up to each of us, but it's not a big deal, it's just something to waffle about, innit.

Like JtR in general, I'm not tied to any fixed ideas. The murders most definitely happened, who committed them, how many they committed, and for what reasons, that's something I have absolutely no fixed ideas on.

Same with the scrapbook. It wasn't penned by Jim, he didn't commit the murders claimed in the novella, that's about as fixed as I get on any of it. Beyond that, the who, what, why, where and when is something I'm open to.

Cheers!

[Lombro2]

Just to get the thread back on track and correct the misrepresentations.

1. One off did exist in the business world to mean something that may or may not be repeated in 1888. So did “two off”, “three off”, etc. They are references to quantities that may or may not be repeated.

2. One off came to mean in published print in the lay world this century to mean something “not repeated” or “unique” even if there were “a hundred off” of them.

3. A business man writing in his diary is entering the lay world same as a forger writing a fake diary in 1992.

Michael Barrett seems to be the only man in England who understood this.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Just to get the thread back on track and correct the misrepresentations.

1. One off did exist in the business world to mean something that may or may not be repeated in 1888. So did “two off”, “three off”, etc. They are references to quantities that may or may not be repeated.

This is absolutely incorrect.

2. One off came to mean in published print in the lay world this century to mean something “not repeated” or “unique” even if there were “a hundred off” of them.

This doesn't make any sense.

3. A business man writing in his diary is entering the lay world same as a forger writing a fake diary in 1992.

This doesn't make any sense.

Michael Barrett seems to be the only man in England who understood this.

This also makes no sense.