in the United States-of America. 501 
OCCASION. Dr. Witherspoon ranks the following use of this word among the 
* local phrases and terms” of New England: “ Shalt I have occasion, i. c. 
opportunity to go over the ferry.”” I never heard it used in this sense, but 
it is often used for zeed in this manner: I haye no occasion for it. 
OCCLUSION; a shutting up, closing. The occlusion of the port of New 
Orleans by the Spaniards was calculated to give general alarm through the 
United States.” Letter of President Jefferson to Gov. Garrard, Dec. 
16, 1802. 
This word has been often noticed, and ridiculed, by the English, as if it 
was a word in general use in America; which is by no means the case. 
Some few persons in this country, however, whose writings have reached 
England, have made use of it; but, though this may be a reasonable 
ground with an Englishman for presuming it to be one of our common 
-words, yet the peculiar opinions of a few individuals can no more make a 
usage here than in England ; and this very word has been the subject of as 
much ridiculein this country, as it has been there. Some persons have sup- 
_ posed that occlusion was used for the first time in this country in the letter 
above quoted; but this is not the fact. It was used many years before 
that, in Dr. Ramsay’s History of the A Revolution, (published in 
1789) vol. i. p. 103. “ He had also hoped, that the prospect of pdvantage 
to the town of Salem, from its wae tale the seat of the cu: se, 
and from the occlusion of the port of Boston, would detach hem from the 
interest of the latter,” &c. In the London edition of the work, this word, 
being doubtless new to the English editor, was probably supposed to be an 
error of the press in the merican copy, and it is accérdingly changed into 
a word resembling it in sound, and which would occupy the same space in 
the page, the word ex-clusion. Occlusion is in the dictionaries. 
OFFSET. This is much used by the dawyers of America instead of the 
English term set-off ; and it is also very eon nee. language, in 
the sense of an equivalent : “ The exp f th d been strongly 
urged, but the saving in insurance, in ships pol mae and the ransom of 
seamen, was more than an offse¢t against this item.” Marsh. Life f 
Washing. vol. v. p. 529. It oo not in the dictionaries. 
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