Bears feed on/off honey and wild berries.

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Angliholic

#551908 Thu, 07 Aug 08 05:39 AM

Bears feed on/off honey and wild berries.

Hi,
Do both of on and off fit in the above? If yes, do they convey the same idea to you? Thanks.

Angliholic

Joined on Wed, Feb 14 2007

SomewhereinFormosa

Veteran Member (5,169)

Without true love, life is meaningless and worthless since our physical world is nothing but a dream. ~~Angliholic~~簡瑞達

Mr Wordy

#552249 Thu, 07 Aug 08 08:17 PM

Yes, but again "off" is more casual/colloquial (to me). It's the sort of thing I might say but probably wouldn't write.

Google hits:

"feed on honey": 38,700
"feed off honey": 6

I'd expect more hits for "on" than "off", but this huge disparity rather surprises me.

Mr Wordy

Joined on Tue, May 27 2008

Regular Member (960)

Native British English speaker

RayH

#552250 Thu, 07 Aug 08 08:17 PM

Bears feed on honey and wild berries.

"off honey" is very odd sounding.

RayH

Joined on Sat, Mar 22 2008

CA, USA

Regular Member (699)

Native speaker of U. S. English. Not a grammar expert.

Mr Wordy

#552254 Thu, 07 Aug 08 08:26 PM

RayH
"off honey" is very odd sounding.

It's interesting you should say that, Ray, and your view more closely matches the Google stats. To me,"feed off" sounds, well, as I say, casual -- even a bit sloppy, if you like -- but it's something that people definitely do say in my part of the world. I wonder if there might be regional differences here.

Mr Wordy