Off the car or out of the car?

[Mosteque]

Test No. errors/inter-4 "When you go to France...", question 9

A police car arrived and an angry-looking police officer got off the car and came up to me.

(a) arrived
(b) angry-looking
(c) off
(d) up

Test No. errors/inter-4 "When you go to France...", answer 9

A police car arrived and an angry-looking police officer got out of the car and came up to me.

Correct entry: out of
The error was: (c) off

Your answer was: n/a
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i think that 'got off' is proper as well
am i right?

[Torsten]

Well,

It's very likely he was inside the car rather than on top of the car, isn't it?
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Test Of English for International Communication
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[Mosteque]

although i know ppl who travel on top of their cars, especially being under the influence of some strange beverages, you might be quite right here

but

according to "cambridge advanced learner's dictionary':
get off (as a phrasal verb) means - to leave a train, bus or aircraft.
I think that this can be applied to 'police car' as well
So our angry-looking police officer could get off his car and approach us.

For me 'get off the car' is proper and that's why i didn't tick any mistake in this sentense.
greetings
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[Alan]

This is really a question of size. As the dictionary says: get off the bus/plane/train. But in these examples get off is another way of saying leave and in the case of a smaller method of transport such as a car/taxi, we wouldn't talk about leaving a car as we would be more specific and indicate that we are emerging from the car or getting out of it.
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[Mosteque]

watching american movies (i'm aware that american english is far from being perfect) I've come across sth like: "get off my car you filthy #$@#$@" not once
So, you still haven't persuaded me and I still clime that get off the car is proper

I think that this expression is much too confusing to be used as a mistake to correct in tests like that.

(geeez, I'm really stubborn, am i not?? )
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[Alan]

Sorry you've missed the point. I'm not here to persuade you one way or the other but to try and explain some of the anomalies of the language. You may well have heard the expression 'Get off my car' but that means 'Don't touch my car/ Leave my car alone.' Incidentally there's nothing WRONG with American English as you suggest, or come to that with any other type or variant of English. The important thing is to try and understand what it means.
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[Guest]

yes:)
And now I uderstand it better. Now, when you gave this explanation of 'get off my car' as 'leave it alone/do not touch it', it makes sense:)
thx

[Mosteque]

it was me of course:)
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[rich7]

It depends on what you call perfect English, if there is in fact,I wouldn't dare to say that such and such is better than the other. It's just a matter of styles, preferences and so on.
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I should have been born in the USA.
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[Mosteque]

Ok, so let me elaborate on that for a while.

I consider British English as a stem and any other variation of it, like american, australian...... as offsprings.
I don't claim they are wrong, I simply say that British English is a matrix of the language. Like everything that lives (and languages live their own life, don't they??) it evolves but the stem: grammar principles, vocabulary and stuff, stays unchanged for a longer period of time.

English like any other language is very susceptible to changes for it's worldwide. But still - the stem stays British and this is considered as proper english, not only by me but also by experts who deal with examining ppl all over the world.

In the USA ppl don't 'feel' the difference between, for instance 'where have you been' and 'where were you'. I was asking them about it and they told me: hmmmm there is almost none difference you may use them interchangeably.
Of course ppl i asked weren't experts but they were native speakers so they knew best. Right?

As we all know, in tests checking our knowledge of English there is a lot of questions dealing with the difference between past simple and present perfect. I'm sure that a lot of Americans would make mistakes in those tests, being at the same time native speakers.

That's why i claim that British English may be considered as 'perfect english'
On the other hand i'm fully aware that there is a lot of varieties of "British English"
I hope you get my point
Regards:)
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[rich7]

The idea of a "standard accent" is rubbish. There is no standard accent, it's a myth.

But I agree with you . American English is just a dialect ... more correctly, a collection of dialects ... of English. American English is not a different language. There's a good case for Scots to be considered a different language. Still, I'd consider even Scots a dialect of English. There is no case for American English to be considered a separate language.
I don't think there is anything wrong with using "American english" when refering to the english spoken in the USA, because it encompasses the unique expressions, slang, spelling, pronounciation/accents that has seperately developed in the english used by Americans. The english language has been further subdived into "American english", "Australian english" and so on, because certain countries outside the UK, such as the USA, Australia, New Zealand, all have english as their first language and each is a varient of the english language originally from england. It is only logical to refer to the english of each country by geography. How else could I tell an American that the word fanny has a different meaning in Aussie english than in American english, without using the terms "American english" and "Australian english" as a means of distinguishing.
_________________
I should have been born in the USA.
I've got this thing about America.