Q: Where does the expression “off the cuff” come from?
A: The use of “off the cuff” to mean without preparation apparently comes from notes jotted on one’s shirt cuffs.
The Oxford English Dictionary says the colloquial usage originated in the US and means “extempore, on the spur of the moment, unrehearsed.”
As the dictionary explains, the phrase “off the cuff” signifies “as if from notes made on the shirt-cuff.”
The earliest examples we’ve seen come from the days of silent film, with the first one tracked down by Fred Shapiro, editor of one of our favorite references, The New Yale Book of Quotations:
“Horkheimer’s pictures were the kind that were ‘shot off the cuff’ ” (San Francisco Examiner, Nov. 4, 1922).
The passage refers to E. D. Horkheimer. He and his brother, H. M. Horkheimer, founded the Balboa Amusement Producing Co. in Long Beach, CA, turning out silent films from 1913 to 1918.
The language researcher Pascal Tréguer found the next published example in an article by the screenwriter Alfred A. Cohn (The Film Daily, New York, Oct. 7, 1928):
“With the coming of the ‘talkie’ script,” Cohn writes, the director “no longer ‘shoots ’em off the cuff.’ ”
Cohn wrote the screenplay for The Jazz Singer (1927), the first feature-length film with some synchronized singing and speech.
On his website word histories, Tréguer also cites an incident in which Jack Cohn, a film producer and co-founder of Columbia Pictures, is said to have dashed off an idea for a movie title on one of his shirt cuffs during a golf tournament:
“Somebody said Jack Cohn had ‘stymied’ and Jack wrote it on his cuff as a good title for a future Columbia release” (The Film Daily, March 25, 1928). In golf, “stymied” refers to an obsolete rule about one ball blocking another on a green.
When the noun “cuff” first showed up in the 14th century, it referred to a mitten or a glove, a usage that the OED says is now obsolete.
The dictionary’s earliest citation, with “cuffs” spelled “coffus,” is from William Langland’s allegorical poem Piers Plowman (circa 1378):
“He caste on his cloþes, i-clouted and i-hole, His cokeres and his coffus, for colde of his nayles” (“He threw on his clothes, full of patches and holes, his socks and his mittens, for the cold of his nails”).
In the 16th century, Oxford says, “cuff” took on its modern sense of “an ornamental part at the bottom of a sleeve, consisting of a fold of the sleeve itself turned back, a band of linen, lace, etc. sewed on, or the like.”
The dictionary’s first citation, which we’ve expanded here, is from a 1522 will in Testamenta Eboracensia [Testaments of York], a collection of wills registered in York:
“I gif to Laurence Foster my velvett jacket, to make his childer [children] patlettes [collars] and cuyfifes [cuffs].” (A “patlet” is an old term for a collar, ruff, neckerchief, or other neckwear.)
In the 20th century, “cuff” took on an additional meaning, “the turn-up on a trouser leg,” a usage the OED describes as “chiefly U.S.”
The dictionary’s first example is from a 1911 catalogue of T. Eaton Company Ltd., a now-defunct chain of Canadian department stores: “Trousers have belt loops, cuff bottoms and full width.”
Help support the Grammarphobia Blog with your donation. And check out our books about the English language and more.