h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi all

I've been away for a very long time...nice to pop in. (Hello Ben!)
I'm in a quandary and the only place to come is h2g2... of course.

Any ideas? I've just produced a document with one of these phrases (I won't tell you which one so as to not sway the discussion...) and my manager circled my choice. A straw poll in the office hasn't helped.

I think this is one of those phrases that we heard as children, but never saw written down, and so we have parsed it in different ways.

Official line?

Ta

Af

I don't see how it could be bat. I'd go with back.

As in cricket... hit it off your own bat... as opposed to what though? Someone elses?

???Aroo!!!

A

Of course I meant someone else's...

A

It is *definitely* 'Off your own bat'. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it means 'unaided', and I've also heard the phrase used to suggest something was done under someone's own initiative. I can't think of a reasonable meaning for 'Off your own back'.

I guess I don't play enough cricket. I thought you meant something like "Is there something you want to get off your back?"

They are different phrases:

"get something off my back" - relate/share a problem to/with someone

"off my own bat" - achieve something on your own

I've always understood it to be *bat*, for what it's worth.

Hmmm

I always thought 'back'

but I may have parsed it badly as said above.

I always thought of it in the same context as 'putting your back into it'

Oh, well, you learn something new every day on h2g2

Thank you all *so* much...

Btw, I've changed it to 'on your own initiative'..!

Af
x

I haven't heard this phrase very many times, but I can only think of it as being 'back', as with 'put your back into it'. I agree with the last person (post 9?), who said this and made sense to me.
I thought it meant 'with the use of your own back' i.e. with your own effort, without help.
The couple of times I have heard it, it only just made sense to me.

Either sounds fine to me

I've always said 'back', given that implies heavy manual labour. That's probably just my own subtext though.

Ah, well, given the choice I'd go for 'bat'.

But I'd understand either, and 'm not picky

Cheerful dragon is right - it's "off your own bat"
26199 - where's the fun in not being picky?

Definitely "off your own bat".

...ahh but that's the beauty of language. If enough of us are wrong for long enough then eventually *we* become correct.

Hmm, another vote for 'back' here -

wouldn't 'getting there off your own back' be the opposite of
getting something 'on the backs of others' ie, at someone elses expense...

You will hear both expressions and most people seem to know what is meant by the context anyway so neither is really wrong, although one is maybe just born of a mishearing of the other.

Oh, and a pat on the back for the common sense of Orcus when he says..
"...ahh but that's the beauty of language. If enough of us are wrong for long enough then eventually *we* become correct."

Yes indeed.

The lessy picky I am, the less chance I'm actually wrong