off of

Used (instead of from?) by a prolific LT member. AAAAHHHHH.

I hate it, too!

There are a lot of double-preposition phrases that can be simplified to just one word, or else the two have already been combined (as in "onto", "upon"). It seems like it might be a register thing, that "off of" is more casual than a simple "off" or "from".

How do you get down off an elephant?

You don't get down off an elephant. You get down off a duck.

Robert

...or off of a duck?

Or from off of a ...

Almost as bad as off on, beloved by sales advertisers. "10% off on all kitchen units".

Is that when they are on offer?

It's an odd one: it clearly sounds wrong, or at least very informal, to say "get off of", but there doesn't seem to be any good reason for that.

It's not that we object to following a phrasal verb by another preposition: "get off to sleep", "get on in life" and hundreds of other expressions with "preposition chains" are perfectly OK. And it's not simply that we object because the preposition is redundant in this case: no-one is likely to complain if you say "get on to the bus" instead of "get on the bus". So it's probably just that we don't like the clash of sounds in "off of".

I would accept 'off from' but why use two words when one will do.

For emphasis?

Get...Off...Of...My...Back!

I think "Get off my Back" sounds more emphatic. More direct. But then again, who am I? Just a poor scientist with no actual training on how to write.

This one is definitely one of my pet peeves. I'm glad to hear others agree! It's not only cacophonic, but also incoherent in terms of the possessive.