Pain in the English
Pain in the English

Unpacking English, Bit by Bit

A community for questioning, nitpicking, and debating the quirks and rules of the English language.

Pain in the English
Pain in the English

Unpacking English, Bit by Bit

A community for questioning, nitpicking, and debating the quirks and rules of the English language.

Username

william.hunter

Member Since

April 21, 2006

Total number of comments

1

Total number of votes received

1

Bio

Latest Comments

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  • April 21, 2006, 10:17am

I got on to this as I was looking for something completely different...

On engineering drawings you'll always see "manufacture 5 off", and never "5 of", for a quantity of 5 items. I think this has to do with "5 items off the drawing, or bill of materials", which leads me to believe that Peter is the only person here who got it right.

Anyway, suppose you shouldn't trust an Afrikaans speaking engineer to advise on the subtle aspects of English.