Daily Vocabulary for Better Conversation

The term off-key is a Colloquialism spreading quickly across the south of England, originating in Tilehurst, Berkshire off-key is used to express something that was not expected and positive, for example the rave was off-key would refer to a more than pleasant pill session down the local discoteque. The committee have recently (2004) named our own bar in Pattaya, Thailand Off key bar to salute our fast growing phrase.

The term Off-key is often used to denote musical content that is not at the expected frequency or pitch period, either with respect to some absolute reference frequency, or in a ratiometric sense (i.e. through removal of exactly one degree of freedom, such as the frequency of a keynote), or pitch intervals not well-defined in the ratio of small whole numbers.

A person with a poor sense of pitch might be said to be singing off-key.

Certain instruments such as the calliope were said to be dreadfully out of tune, but, over time, this characteristic is part of what has given the instrument a certain charm. The crude nature of the sounding mechanism gave rise to a style of playing that involved selection of simple musical intervals.

Examples include the words thought he was a goner in And the Cat Came Back and Yum Yum in Five Green and Speckled Frogs.

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