off

English translation: units

21:00 May 5, 2009

English language (monolingual) [Non-PRO]
Tech/Engineering - Electronics / Elect Eng / Device

English term or phrase: off

- 1.5 V AA batteries (2 off)

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Mariam Osmann KudoZ activity Questions: 419 (2 open) (36 closed without grading) Answers: 213 Egypt
Local time: 00:11

Selected answer:units

Explanation:
:) 2 batteries

Selected response from:

Clauwolf
Local time: 19:11

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4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer

SUMMARY OF ALL EXPLANATIONS PROVIDED

3 +5

units

Clauwolf

Summary of reference entries provided

One-off, two off

Suzan Hamer

Discussion entries: 3

Answers

3 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +5

units

Explanation:
:) 2 batteries

Clauwolf
Local time: 19:11
Works in field
Native speaker of:

Portuguese
PRO pts in category: 34

Grading comment

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Reference comments

14 mins peer agreement (net): +4

Reference: One-off, two off

Reference information:
[Q] From Jim Brewster: Whence the term one-off, which obviously means ‘one of a kind’?

[A] This began as a British expression but is now widely known in the US and elsewhere, I am told.

It comes out of manufacturing, in which off has long been used to mark a number of items to be produced of one kind: 20-off, 500-off. This seems to have begun in foundry work, or a similar trade, in which items were cast off a mould or from a pattern (“We’ll have 20 off that pattern and 500 off that other one”.) An example is in a book of 1947 by James Crowther and Richard Whiddington, Science at War: “Manufacturers found it very difficult to give up mass production, in order to make the 200 or so sets ‘off’.”

A one-off was just a single item, used in particular to refer to a prototype. The first known example appeared in the Proceedings of the Institute of British Foundrymen in 1934: “A splendid one-off pattern can be swept up in very little time.” (The reference is to a casting mould formed in sand.)

Reference: http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-one4.htm

Suzan Hamer
Netherlands
Native speaker of: English

Note to reference poster

Asker: It's my favorite too. Thank you so much

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