English Language & Usage Asked on June 23, 2021
Not only does "out of doors" sound "rather archaic" to me, it sounds superfluous when English already uses "outdoor(s)". Am I correct? Or does "of" somehow distinguish "out of doors" from "outdoor(s)"?
abroad [13]
It was only in the 15th century that
abroad came to mean ‘in foreign parts’. Earlier,
it had been used for ‘out of doors [boldening mine]’, a sense still
current today, if with a rather archaic air; but
originally it meant ‘widely’ or ‘about’ (as in
‘noise something abroad’). It was formed quite
simply from a ‘on’ and the adjective broad,
although it was probably modelled on the much
earlier (Old English) phrase on brede, in which
brede was a noun, meaning ‘breadth’.
Word Origins (2005 2e) by John Ayto. p 2.
It may look inessential to hang on to keeping up ' of ' in ' out of doors ' in these days of prevalence of internet lingo which easily folds up any phrase or clause into acronyms as exemplified in folding up of the phrase 'as soon as possible ' into ASAP and the like , raising the hackles of grammarians though. As one feels more free to use 'outdoors' than ' out of doors ' as an adverb as in the sentence He would like to spend outdoors and also as a noun as shown in the sentence He would like to spend time in the great outdoors , one may usually tend to obviate the usage of ' of '. None of the contemporary writers seems to stick to this old usage and hardly anyone is found interested in holding up this traditional tail ,which can no longer be safe from being scissored in the causal and uncaring hands of the present generation .
Answered by A.Ramakrishna on June 23, 2021
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