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Chris -- 2018-04-11
I doubt that this will be familiar to American readers as the original expression apparently derives from cricket, where the only runs credited to a batsman are those scored ‘off his own bat’. The idiom means to do something on one’s own initiative or through one’s own efforts. ‘Off your own back’ severs the cricket connection, sometimes losing in the process the implication of gaining prestige or recognition for your actions, but highlights the connotation of taking responsibility. Perhaps what’s in the speaker’s mind is the similarly anatomical idea of ‘shouldering a burden’. (Sometimes this means the phrase isn’t used strictly with its original meaning, as in the third example below.)
Google gave me 1490 hits for the standard “off your own bat”. I got 643 for “off your own back”, although more than twice as many as that when searching UK websites only (bit bizarre, that – anyone know why that might happen?). However, some of the non-standard occurrences are actually using the phrase in the different sense of getting someone off your back, i.e. to stop someone hassling you.
Examples of the non-standard usage:
‘Securing [a work placement] off your own back demonstrates initiative and commitment’
www.student-direct.co.uk/?p=869
‘My attitude is I’d rather get in off my own back rather than have to rely on a wildcard.’
www.news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/4573499.stm
‘You can give me your opinion when you are living off your own back, not your parents.’
www.nermal.org/rants/?rantid=18
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It is often heard here in NZ as well.
I’ve heard it a lot, and have had lengthy discussions with one workmate about this. He is English and of course familiar with cricket, but he simply cannot get his head around the idea that ‘off one’s own bat’ is the correct version. He cannot explain how back fits into the expetession, it apprently just sounds right.
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A similar expression, “no skin off my back” (though some, apparently, prefer nose) can lead to similar confusion. I find the imagery strangely compelling, though what it might mean is far from clear.
Honestly, no skin off my bat, just don’t see the need to poke at it when no one is even bringing it up.
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FWIW, this Google Ngram shows “skin off my back” from around 1812, “skin off my nose” from around 1843, and “skin off my ass” from around 1930. “Skin off my nose” starts really increasing in the 1960s, and nowadays is used a lot more than the other two.
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Thanks for that, Dixon, it’s useful to have such perspectives. It strikes me that while both the nose and back variants mean much the same in this instance, if we drag in the grindstone which I seem to spy hiding behind the nose, not literally of course, there seems a notable difference between ‘nose to the grindstone’ and ‘back to the grindstone’. “Arse to the grindstone’ I’d sooner not dwell upon, and the ass variant for a sadly diminishing number of us BrEnglish would entail no more than cruelty to donkeys. ( Image-wise I mean, I don’t wish to minimise animal cruelty.)
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And two more body parts: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?c … tt%3B%2Cc0
“Skin off my teeth” is curious. It is an intentional perversion that seems to have become a fixed pun in certain vocabularies.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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