A: How did the phrase “no object” come to mean “not something important” or “not an obstacle” in a sentence like “I’d fly first class if money were no object”?
A: The usage was first recorded in the late 18th century in newspaper advertising copy. It’s derived from the much older use of the noun “object” to mean a goal or purpose. Here’s the story.
When the noun first appeared in English in the late 14th century, it meant “something placed before or presented to the eyes or other senses,” but now more generally means “a material thing that can be seen and touched,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
The dictionary’s earliest citation is from On the Properties of Things, John Trevisa’s translation, sometime before 1398, of De Proprietatibus Rerum, an encyclopedic Latin work by the 13th-century Franciscan scholar Bartholomaeus Anglicus:
“The obiecte of þe yȝe is al þat may ben seyn, and al þat may ben herd is obiect to þe heringe” (“The object of the eye is all that may be seen, and all that may be heard is the object of the hearing”).
The OED says the usage ultimately comes from the classical Latin noun obiectum (something presented to the senses) and past participle obiectus (offered, presented).
In the early 15th century, the English noun came to mean a “goal, purpose, or aim; the end to which effort is directed; the thing sought, aimed at, or striven for,” according to the dictionary.
The first Oxford citation is from Grande Chirurgie, an anonymous Middle English translation, written sometime before 1425, of Chirurgia Magna (1363), a Latin surgical treatise by the French surgeon Guy de Chauliac:
“Euacuacioun for his obiecte only biheld plectoric concourse” (“The object of evacuation only concerns plethoric accumulation”). The passage refers to the evacuation, or draining, of plethoric concourse, excessive accumulation of blood.
So how did “object,” a noun for a goal or purpose, come to mean something important or achievable when used in the negative phrase “no object” (not important or achievable)?
As an explanation, the OED cites a 1931 paper by the lexicographer C. T. Onions, the dictionary’s fourth editor.
In “Distance No Object” (Tract XXXVI, Society for Pure English), Onions says the expression is derived from a formula commonly used in early newspaper advertisements, “in which the word object had its normal meaning of ‘thing aimed at,’ ‘aim.’ ”
Thus, he writes, “the advertiser states directly what is his object or his principal object.”
Later, Onions says, “object” was used in negative constructions meaning something that’s not an aim—“the first step” in its “shift of meaning.”
Finally, he says, the negative construction came to mean something that “will not be taken into consideration by the advertiser, that it will not be regarded as an obstacle, that it will not matter.”
The earliest OED citation for “no object” used this way is from a newspaper ad by a woman seeking a job: “A Gentlewoman … wishes to superintend the family of a single Gentleman or Lady … and salary will be no object” (Morning Herald, London, May 20, 1782).
The expression soon escaped its advertising origins. We found an example in Management (1799), a comedy by the English playwright Frederick Reynolds.
A character who wants to be an actor says he’ll work for free. When offered money, he replies, “Pha!—money’s no object.”
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