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Macmillan Dictionary gives the following use of the phrase kick off (among others):

kick someone off something INFORMAL to force someone to leave a place or activity

Recently I encountered a post with such a sentence:

The only airlines that survived are the ones who were hard-ass enough to drag people, bloody, out of their seats, hurt single mothers carrying babies, and kick honeymooning couples off of flights.

Why an additional of? Is it just an idiomatic feature of the author's English or does it have it's meaning and emphasize something?

olegst
  • 1,173

1 Answers1

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"Off of" is an informal way to say "from", but

The idiomatic expression is:

The"to kick (someone) off (something)"

  • to force someone to depart from certain situations

Usage examples:

1) I kick poor sportsmen off the team.

2) You kick non-performers off the committee.

3) He kicks people who have been drinking off the bus.

4) She kicks hijackers off the plane.

5) The United Nations kicks off non-complying member countries from the disarmament committee.

6) We kick absentee members off the board of directors.

7) You (all) kick them off the boat when they become dangerous.

8) They kick the weakest members off the island.

9) Is the United Nations kicking off non-complying member countries from the disarmament committee?

10) We are not kicking him off the boat right now.

11) Did you kick the wet dog off the couch yesterday night?

(www.idioms4you.com)

Another "kick off of" recent example from www.mtv.com: (2000)

  • "Rage Against the Machine would like to sincerely apologize to all of our fans who were kicked off of Napster for downloading Renegades," Morello said in a statement released on the band's official Web site, www.ratm.com