{"id":45199,"date":"2016-04-06T07:00:23","date_gmt":"2016-04-06T11:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uncommongoods.pro\/?p=45199"},"modified":"2016-04-04T14:03:37","modified_gmt":"2016-04-04T18:03:37","slug":"uncommon-knowledge-whats-the-origin-of-off-the-cuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/2016\/uncommon-knowledge-whats-the-origin-of-off-the-cuff\/","title":{"rendered":"Uncommon Knowledge: What\u2019s the Origin of \u201cOff the Cuff?\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/product\/latitude-longitude-cufflinks?source=blog_uk040616\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-45234 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/23991_040616-1.jpg\" alt=\"23991_040616\" width=\"650\" height=\"650\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ve probably heard the phrase \u201coff the cuff\u201d as shorthand for something spontaneous and unrehearsed. And you might also know that it stems from the pre-twentieth-century practice of performers jotting lines on their shirt cuffs that provided discreet white spaces for perfunctory notes. Curiously, the handy phrase may have been in colloquial use for decades before it appeared in print in 1936. That same year, Charlie Chaplin\u2019s classic film <em>Modern Times<\/em> (1936) featured a scene where Chaplin\u2019s Tramp writes lyrics on his shirt cuffs, only to have them go flying off once he hits the stage, leaving him to improvise to hilarious effect. The earliest known appearance of \u201coff the cuff\u201d in ink was in a <em>Los Angeles Times <\/em>article bearing the headline \u201cDirectors Turn Back Time, Again \u2018Shoot Off the Cuff\u2019\u201d which includes the observation that \u201cChaplin starts a story with an idea, works out each scene as it comes along.\u201d This nod to Chaplin\u2019s famously improvisational style can hardly be a coincidence in light of his popular film performance of the same year, marking the popular adoption of a phrase that was once, well, off the cuff.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/product\/latitude-longitude-cufflinks?source=blog_uk040616\" target=\"_blank\">Latitude Longitude Cufflinks<\/a> | $195<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You\u2019ve probably heard the phrase \u201coff the cuff\u201d as shorthand for something spontaneous and unrehearsed. And you might also&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":45235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1208],"tags":[813],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45199"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45199"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45458,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45199\/revisions\/45458"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}