Monstrous to my ears

     I love thinking about words as having surprising and curious histories as they snake through time. I cringe at the popular notion that a word’s meaning—that is, its “real” or “true” meaning—is its original meaning, a static thing. To mix metaphors: the original meaning of a word is just one of the ingredients in the stew that is that word—or perhaps it is the starting point of a complex transformative journey. 

     It is not the essence. It is not the core. 

     The word may even have left its one-time core far behind, a betrayal of its original self. 

  * * * 

     Speaking of metaphors: one kind of change to which a word can be susceptible is our understanding of a word’s metaphorical quality. 

     It can lose that. 

     Take the word “based.” I like that word. There is the noun, “base,” which refers (often) to “the bottom of something considered as its support : FOUNDATION” (Merriam-Webster). 

     Then there is the verb “base,” as in “have as the foundation for (something)” or “to find a foundation … for : to find a base … for —usually used with on or upon.” 

     And so there is a base: something upon which some other thing rests or is supported. And then there is that which is “based” on (or upon) it. 

     Sensible. Logical. 

     But illogic has long been afoot. 

     In my long career as a teacher—i.e., an evaluator of young people’s verbal efforts—I’ve noticed a definite change in how they think about the verb “base.” Because I think of something being based on something else in relation to the metaphor of a base and that for which it is a support, I have always spoken in this way: 

• Led Zepplin’s “Stairway to Heaven” is based on Spirit’s “Taurus.” 

• The 1960 TV series “The Fugitive” was loosely based on Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. 

• Based on your accent, I gather that you’re from crazy town. 

     How else am I to make my meaning known? 

     Here’s how the youth of today speak: : 

• Led Zepplin’s “Stairway to Heaven” is based off of Spirit’s “Taurus.” 

• The 1960 TV series “The Fugitive” was loosely based off of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. 

• Based off of your accent, I gather that you’re from crazy town. 

The horror: 

     I was horrified when, maybe thirty or so years ago, I first began to encounter in student writing the construction “based off.” 

     Based off?! A base is something that supports something on top of it. Hence, one must speak of X being BASED ON Y. Talk of X being BASED OFF of Y is nonsense! It’s confused! 

     I crossed “based off” out whenever I found it. “That’s not English,” I’d say or write. 

     But I kept encountering that construction. It started as a trickle but became a flood. 

     A few years ago, I spoke with some of my younger colleagues at the college. Yep, they, too, said “based off.” When I suggested that “based off” makes no sense, they just stared at me, uncomprehending. 

      (This reminds me of the time that I asked a fresh new colleague who her favorite musical artist was. “Justin Timberlake,” she said. I was nonplussed.) 

     Since then, I’ve paid attention—on TV and elsewhere—and, sure enough, the new standard—at least in my part of the world (Southern California)—is BASED OFF, not that musty old metaphor-minded BASED ON.  

     I discussed all this with an old colleague and friend. I asked her if she is still horrified upon encountering “based off” in her students’ speech and writing. 

     She is. 

     Nay, she is incensed. She is, she says, infuriated by it.

     But it seems clear that our efforts to draw a line in the sand about “base” are hopeless. Somehow, “base” has been torn from its once familiar moorings (or base). The torch has been passed—and transformed—and “base” is no longer the glowing metaphor it once was. 

     It’s just a word. 

     Without pictures. [END]

     —No, wait. I want to end by citing two entries from the New Oxford American Dictionary: "nonplussed" and "public school":

     Nonplussed: 

     1 … PERPLEXED  

USAGE In standard use, nonplussed means ‘surprised and confused’: the hostility of the new neighbor's refusal left Mrs. Walker nonplussed. In North American English, a new use has developed in recent years, meaning ‘unperturbed’—more or less the opposite of its traditional meaning: hoping to disguise his confusion, he tried to appear nonplussed. This new use probably arose on the assumption that non- was the normal negative prefix and must therefore have a negative meaning. It is not considered part of standard English. 

     Public school: 

1 (chiefly in North America) a school supported by public funds. 

2 (in the UK) a private for-fee secondary school. [I.e., the opposite meaning]

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Coming soon: On the adjective “psychic”