Make Your Editor Cry: Based Around or Based Off vs. Based On
You can build a structure around a center, but bases go on the bottom of things, so you can’t base something around something else.
Ask any baseball player and we realize that we can cover all the bases and we can touch all the bases. We can be caught off base by something surprising. We can also look at mistakes where, for example, a new idea turned out to be way off base.
Similarly, while we can describe the base of something like the base of a statue or the base of the mountain. However, we cannot base off something. You can build something off from a starting point, but you can’t base anything off of anything else. My claim here is far from baseless. Look it up for yourself.
Something is always based on something else or based upon something, which means to “make from” or “form from” a starting point, as in “based on a true story” or “based upon purely circumstantial evidence.”
You can build a structure around a center, but bases go on the bottom of things, so you can’t base something around something else. Also, you can’t base anything off of something else. You can build something off of a starting point, but you cannot base it off of a starting point.
Something is always based on something else.
Examples:
Incorrect:
I reached this conclusion based around the witness testimony.
I reached this conclusion based off the evidence.
Correct:
I reached this conclusion based on the witness testimony.
I reached this conclusion based on the evidence.
Gregg Bridgeman is the Editor-in-Chief at Olivia Kimbrell Press. He is husband to best-selling Christian author Hallee Bridgeman and parent to three. He continues to proudly serve in the US Armed Forces and has done so in either an active or reserve capacity for more than twenty years as an airborne and air assault qualified paratrooper, earning a Bronze Star for his service. Most importantly, he was ordained in October of 2001 after surrendering his life to Christ decades earlier.