One-off vs. One-of

From: Dan Wright <dtwright_at_uiuc.edu>
Date: Mon Nov 5 09:32:48 2001

Feldman, Robert said:
> The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language lists "One-off" as:
> Adjective: (Chiefly British) Happening, done, or made only once.
> Noun: Something that is not repeated or reproduced.
>
> Does anyone have an Oxford English Dictionary handy? It should give the date
> of the earliest in-print reference.

The first in-print reference seems to be 1934. See below.

---
From the OED2 definition of "off":
13. Used with a preceding numeral to represent a quantity in
production or manufacture, esp. one off (see ONE 30b).
1934, etc. [see ONE 30b]. 1947 CROWTHER & WHIDDINGTON Science at War 49
Manufacturers found it very difficult to give up mass production, in order to
make the 200 or so sets off. 1970 Cabinet Maker & Retail Furnisher 30 Oct.
205/2 Without barrier coats mould breakdown can start after 60 units off. 1973
Physics Bull. Apr. 238/2 (Advt.), Kienzle printers. 6 off, surplus to
manufacturing requirements.
---
From the OED2 definition of "one":
30b. one off: a single example of a manufactured product; something not
repeated; a prototype. Freq. (with hyphen) attrib. or as adj. Also transf. and
fig. Cf. OFF adv. 13, once-off adj. s.v. ONCE adv. B. 7b.
1934 Proc. Inst. Brit. Foundrymen XXVI. 552 A splendid one-off pattern can
be swept up in very little time. 1935 Jrnl. R. Aeronaut. Soc. XXXIX. 41 One
off per machine does not give us much opportunity for reducing production
costs. 1947 Ibid. LI. 308/1 With the lofting technique it is possible to cut
down the time required to produce a prototype aircraft for..it is possible to
reproduce full-scale layouts directly on to the material to be worked..thus
cutting out what was originally the factor which absorbed the most production
time in the freehand manufacture of one offs. 1954 Archit. Rev. CXVI. 411/2
Hills built the first part of Cheshunt as a one off job, with no guarantees
of further business, though of course it was intended to be the first of a
line. 1955 Ibid. CXVII. 226/2 None of the motor-cars illustrated is a
standardized mass-produced model; all are expensive, specialized, handicraft
one-offs which can justly be compared to the Parthenon because, like it, they
are unique works of handmade art. 1958 Listener 25 Sept. 458/2 Both the
estates of the speculative rush builders and the architectural one-offs are
unable to keep pace with the demand [for new houses]. 1961 Times 3 Oct.
(Computer Suppl.) p. v/3 The centres are..even able to do a one-off job,
such as eliminating a production bottleneck, very cheaply. 1965 R. B. ORAM
Cargo Handling iv. 70 Tailor made, or one-off, machines, may give great
satisfaction. 1968 Sunday Times 29 Sept. 25 Jenkins has already made a crude
stab at a wealth tax with his special charge on investment incomes... But this
was a one-off effort. 1970 Times 28 Mar. 21 All these relationships involve
money and are on a continuing basis rather than a one-off purchase. 1973 Daily
Tel. 22 Oct. 12/4 When Barry Took's Grub Street (BBC-2) was screened as a
one-off..I rashly predicted that it could make a series. 1974 F. WARNER
Meeting Ends II. i. 35 But we find it much harder to shake a man off
afterwards, and anyway, I don't like those one off dates. I need
companionship, an outing, warmth. 1976 Scottish Rev. Spring 33 For the most
part they could only produce an endless stream of one-off building prototypes.
1977 Hot Car Oct. 97/1 There seems to be a good deal of misunderstanding about
the way the Type Approval Regulations apply to one-offs or cars built by
private individuals.
---
- Dan Wright
(dtwright_at_uiuc.edu)
(http://www.uiuc.edu/~dtwright)
-] ------------------------------ [-] -------------------------------- [-
``Weave a circle round him thrice, / And close your eyes with holy dread,
  For he on honeydew hath fed, / and drunk the milk of Paradise.''
       Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan
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Received on Mon Nov 05 2001 - 09:32:48 GMT