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Fused Participle; ‘Off Of’
Cut That Fuse
But a bad Marino pass on the Dolphins’ ensuing series led to the ball deflecting off of running back Karim Abdul-Jabbar and into the hands of linebacker Corey Widmer.” But the bad pass didn’t lead to the ball, which is what the sentence says, literally, and what a reader might think, momentarily. It led to the deflecting. The phrase “the ball deflecting” is what language technicians call a fused participle. It’s often best to defuse it, as it were, and that’s easy to do. Make it “led to the ball’s deflecting....” The possessive pulls the reader instantly to the real object of “led to.” (And while in technical land, we should note that “off of” is a barbarism; drop the “of.”)
There are times, though, when the difference in meaning between the naked pronoun and the one wearing an apostrophe is microscopic, and any ambiguity lasts about a nanosecond. Then the choice really depends on sound. What to do with “I can’t imagine him wanting anything less”? This editor left it alone.
Addendum, 2/12/01
A good example of the need to defuse:
Starting out, the passage spoke of a research project “on the dangers of post-Communist Russia...,” which is a very broad and slightly mystifying topic.
But the article continued, “losing control of its nuclear weapons.” Only then did it become clear that the danger wasn’t post-Communist Russia in its entirety, but a much more specific problem. Make it possessive — “Russia’s losing” — and we zip straight through to the danger being researched, which starts with “losing.” The reader doesn’t need to stop at “Russia” and then shift gears.
CJR
