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It seems there is a relatively recent trend of using expression "〈verb〉 off of":

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22*+off+of%22
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=off+of&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3

Is this really a new trend or my illusion (English is my second language)? Is there some explanation of the two peaks in the Google n-gram popularity plot?

UPDATE: Typo in the first URL corrected.

Computist
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  • Your first search is for "off off", not "off of", and your second search is simply for "off of" which does not mention a preceding verb and is not an idiom or established phrase - just two words together. Can you give some concrete examples of your own that you are questioning? – Kristina Lopez Oct 22 '13 at 17:01
  • The recent upward trend is all in the US (Google Ngrams), so the phrase "off of" will clearly now be denigrated as a vile Americanism, despite the fact that it's still used in the UK, and until 30 years ago, the UK and US usage rates were quite similar. And I'll repeat Kristina's question: what verbs were you thinking of. – Peter Shor Oct 22 '13 at 17:39
  • @Kristina: One verb would be "jump". – Peter Shor Oct 22 '13 at 17:43
  • @PeterShor, thanks for that verb, I guess. But I'm not getting why it's such a question for the OP - since I see "off of" as literal. "Jump off of" means to "leap from", in other words. What else can it be interpreted as? – Kristina Lopez Oct 22 '13 at 17:49
  • You can either "jump off of the roof" or "jump off the roof". As far as I can tell, there's no difference, except that the first isn't used that much in the U.K. This isn't like "jump onto the roof" and "jump on the roof", where there might be a difference. – Peter Shor Oct 22 '13 at 17:50
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    drive off of a cliff; live off of a single income; throw the tracker off of your trail; these are just off of the top of my head ;) – Lumberjack Oct 22 '13 at 19:01
  • Typo corrected. – Computist Oct 22 '13 at 19:58
  • @Lumberjack, I'm seeing it now that "off of" is used - in conjunction with another word or two - to represent a number of different things. Good examples! – Kristina Lopez Oct 22 '13 at 20:29

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Whatever else it may be, it isn't recent. The Oxford English Dictionary has citations showing the use of off of from the seventeenth century onwards.

FumbleFingers
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Barrie England
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