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Off and on?

Reader question:

Please explain “off and on” in this sentence: He worked for CBS News, off and on, from 2001 to 2008.

My comments:

Another great question on small words – and it’s no fuss to me.

First, to paraphrase: He worked for CBS News on many occasions from 2001 to 2008 – but only occasionally and irregularly, not continuously throughout the years.

He may have worked for that news outfit for three months in, say, 2001, fives more weeks in 2002, 16 consecutive months from 2003-04, another six weeks in 2007, plus one month in 2008.

In other words, their working relationship was sometimes on, sometimes off during that period.

On, of course, means it’s there – the light is on, for instance and it’s there. You see the light.

Off, on the other hand, means it’s gone. For example, if you turn off the light, then light goes out. The room is filled in dark.

Anyways, a relationship that is on and off means it’s sometimes heated, sometimes cool; people sometimes see each other often, daily for instance for a period of time, sometimes not so often during other periods of time, for instance once several weeks or months.

Have you ever heard of some celebrity figure’s marriage plans being described in the newspaper as “on again, off again”?

Of course, you have. And that means the said celebrity, a male rock star, for instance is fickle, and can never make up his mind whether he’s going to marry that woman or not. On Friday, he announces to the media that he is madly in love with her and that they are going to get married this very Christmas. But by Tuesday, a tabloid paper has revealed that the couple quarreled with, say, unchristian ferocity in a bar the previous night and that the marriage thing appears definitely “off”. Two weeks later, however, the same tabloid says it again can confidently reveal that the couple has patched up their differences, and that their wedding is going ahead, as originally planed.