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This has been driving me crazy for a couple of years. I tried to get a response from A Way With Words but it either hasn't been picked up or I missed it. If you have reached a conclusion and there is one or more facts that have led you to that conclusion is the result "based on", as in "based upon", those fact(s) or is it "based off" those facts? My adamant determination is for the former. But I see the latter popping up more and more. Here is a quote from a website that I saw today that uses both in the same sentence!!
"Since your Power, Heart Rate, and Pace Zones are calculated based off your threshold number, TrainingPeaks recalculates these zones based on the new threshold(s) if we can determine the zone methodolgy used"
What is going on here?!?!? Can someone please help me?
First - if you use "off" the only way it can be grammatically correct is if you put the preposition "of" after it. So your quote is wrong from the start. So let us assume that "of" is present and the statement is grammatically correct. Next we must look at the logic of the statement. A base is the foundation of the conclusion. So, where should the base be? I believe "on" the facts that led to the conclusion. If the base is "off of" these facts it is somewhere else and therefore this statement is not logical.
One way for the quote to make sense is to say that the first calculation was finished and so was lifted 'off' and sent away; the 2nd being in progress still is firmly 'on' the ground. But that's just being too nice to a bad piece of writing.
Based on online discussions it seems this 'off' appears the last couple decades in college papers, and the professors have never stopped shaking head seeing it. Users of it probably have in mind 'spinoff' or 'derivation' or 'consequence.'
I disagree with "off of"; we feel free to say "come off it!", "get off the bed" and "he's off his nut" without feeling we have to add "of". I don't mean the extra "of" is wrong, it just isn't necessary...necessarily. I sometimes use "off of", but usually it sounds redundant to my over-finicky ear.
As for "based off", I agree with you, erik.sandblom, that "based on" is the usual way to say it and that sounds best to me. I suspect "based off" is a Malaprop that was related, in the original perpetrator's mind, to some other idioms that use "off": "I want to bounce some ideas off you", "he's playing off the cues I feed him", "let's start with that idea and take off from there", like that. I think there's another one that's escaping me just now, but you get the idea.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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