Off chance?

Reader question:

Please explain this sentence, particularly “off chance”: There’s an off chance of a shower later Saturday, with a somewhat better chance happening early Sunday.

My comments:

It is possible that a shower may come later on Saturday, according to weather forecast, but it is very unlikely. More likely, there’ll be a shower early Sunday.

In other words, there’s only a remote chance that it will rain on Saturday. However, it will very probably rain on Sunday.

Still, it’s not a certainty. Rain may not visit even on Sunday.

Well, in that case.

I mean, weather forecast cannot always be right.

Right?

Anyways, that’s what “off chance” implies.

Off, as in off the wall, off the market, meaning going away from. If, for example, a nail breaks lose, the glass frame hanging on the nail falls off the wall, smashing into pieces. Or, for another example, if a company pulls one of its underperforming products off the market, it is no longer available. You won’t be able to buy it.

Off, as in on and off, off suggesting it’s gone. You can turn the light on. And you can turn the light off. When you turn the light on, the room is lit, shiny and bright. When you turn the light off, the room goes dark. The light disappears. It no longer exists. It’s gone.

An off chance, or off-chance, suggests there is a chance of something happening, but that chance is actually going away or going off. In other words, that chance is diminished.

An off chance, then, is not much of a chance.

And if you do something on the off chance that you will succeed, then it’s very unlikely that you will succeed.

The earliest evidence for off-chance to be in use is from 1839, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, in Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle.

In other words, “off-chance” has been around for some time. In all likelihood, it is here to stay.

So get it under your belt and master it.

All right, no more ado. Let’s read a few media examples of off-chance, descriptive of an event that’s very unlikely to come to pass:

1. The failure of Silicon Valley Bank on Friday, followed by Signature Bank over the weekend, has put a spotlight on regional banks.

These are not the big, household names like Bank of America and Citigroup, nor small community banks with a few branches. They’re pretty much everything in between.

This week, the ratings agency Moody’s said it’s reviewing half a dozen midsize banks for a possible downgrade, including First Republic Bank and Western Alliance Bancorp. These and others have taken a bruising in the stock market.

But unless you live in their regions, you’ve probably never heard of some of these banks – at least until the last few days.

“Regional” is a bit of a loose term, said Lakshmi Balasubramanyan, a professor of finance at Case Western Reserve University.

“It’s not incredibly well defined,” she said. “When you talk about a region, is it a state or contiguous states or a certain district?”

Texas-based Comerica Bank has branches in Arizona, California, Florida and Michigan. First Republic, headquartered in San Francisco, is scattered throughout eight states, including Wyoming, New York and Massachusetts.

“Especially as you go up in size, the geographic footprint of these banks can get pretty broad – to the point where the large regionals are almost at a national scale,” said Eric Compton, an analyst at Morningstar.

There’s one main reason regional bank stocks have been in turmoil this week, Compton said: “The government’s never going to let, like, a JPMorgan fail.”

“However, regional banks are not viewed as systemically important,” he added. “Maybe the government does let them go under, and there’s an off-chance that maybe your deposits are at risk.”

- Regional banks under scrutiny: What makes them different? Marketplace.org, March 15, 2023.

2. According to Empire of the Kop, Jeremie Frimpong has emerged as Liverpool’s top target to replace the departing Trent Alexander-Arnold. The Merseysiders are ready to make an opening offer of about €35-40 million for the Bayer Leverkusen star, with the Dutchman reportedly open to the move.

Liverpool fans witnessed what they feared for a long while, as Trent Alexander-Arnold confirmed his upcoming departure via a video on his social media channels. The right-back was into the final few months of his deal, as the fans had hoped he’d follow the likes of Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah into committing his future at Anfield.

Despite some rumours that he might stay, Alexander-Arnold was expected to leave Liverpool and with the confirmation, he is now set to join Real Madrid on a free transfer in the summer. There’s an off chance that he would sign for them well before his Liverpool contract ends and join the team for the Club World Cup.

Liverpool were aware of the 26-year-old’s desire to leave and had been planning on signing a replacement in the summer. They have several options, including Ola Aina, Vanderson, Dido and Jeremie Frimpong. The latter is the most obvious replacement given how much he values attacking output, similar to Alexander-Arnold.

Arne Slot likes the idea of Frimpong, as the Dutchman is widely expected to leave Bayer Leverkusen, for whom he has been immense, particularly last season when they won the Bundesliga title. He has had a drop off this season in his performances, but the 23-year-old remains one of the formidable right-back names in the market.

Liverpool are not alone in the chase for Frimpong as some other big clubs are also interested in signing him. The Merseysiders are now prepared to make an opening offer of about €35-40 million to test Leverkusen’s resolve, and unless there’s a release clause, the Germans are likely to demand more.

Frimpong is reportedly open to the idea of joining Liverpool over others as long as the two clubs have an agreement for the transfer. Whether the 23-year-old will be the ideal replacement for Alexander-Arnold will be a question many Liverpool fans will ask, as it’s virtually impossible to replicate the Real Madrid-bound star’s performances right away for Frimpong or anyone else for that matter.

- Liverpool line up €35-40 million move for Jeremie Frimpong, TheHardTackle.com, May 6, 2025.

3. David Fincher has worked with some of the greatest actors of all time. His first film, the much-derided Alien3, features Lance Henriksen, Charles Dance, and, of course, Sigourney Weaver. Since then, he has worked with everyone from Brad Pitt to Rosamund Pike, Morgan Freeman to Jodie Foster.

It’s an impressive list of famous friends, but there are some stars who actually turned down a chance to work with the three-time ‘Best Director’ nominee.

Denzel Washington said no to the role of Detective William Somerset in Se7en, as did Sylvester Stallone. Jonah Hill was in the running for Justin Timberlake’s part in The Social Network, and then there are the slew of big stars who have worked with the noted perfectionist once and have sworn never to do so again. Then there’s the aforementioned Foster, of whom Fincher admitted to being a “huge” fan in an interview with Musicolog. This was ahead of the release of Panic Room, which stars Foster, but the two could have collaborated a lot sooner had things gone to plan.

“We were going to do The Game and rewrite it for her,” the director explained. “That was to be the Sean Penn part. We ended up not doing that for reasons that are too complicated to go into.” The Game, released in 1997, is about an investment banker (Michael Douglas) whose life becomes overtaken by a mysterious competition with far-reaching consequences for the rest of the world. He becomes embroiled in the game after receiving a gift from his brother, the character played by Sean Penn.

Foster and Penn are about as far apart as you can possibly get, so it seems a little unlikely that they were once destined for the same role. However, the clues are there. Penn’s character in The Game is called Conrad Van Orton, but he goes by the nickname ‘Connie’. It seems like this gender-neutral moniker was assigned on the off-chance that Foster did pick up the role.

Fincher went on to explain how, after missing out on her five years earlier, he managed to tie Foster down for Panic Room. “I never thought of her for this because she was busy [directing] Flora Plum,” he recounted. “We cast Kristen Stewart, and she reminded me of a young Jodie Foster. She has that sort of great droll sense of humour. When Nicole [Kidman] hurt herself, we thought we were going to shut the movie down and get an insurance claim. A [producer] told me that Jodie’s movie fell apart, and it was like let’s send her the script!”

Kidman had originally been slated to play Meg Altman, a woman caught in a home invasion with her young daughter (Stewart). However, an old knee injury flared up, so she was forced to leave the project. In a strange coincidence, an injury to Russell Crowe on the set of Flora Plum shelved that idea and left Foster free to star in Panic Room. We’re not saying Fincher and Foster intentionally sabotaged each other’s films so they could work together, but…

Considering how great she is in Panic Room, it’s probably for the best that Foster missed out on The Game. Still, you can’t help but wonder what that film would have looked like if she’d have been in it.

- The Sean Penn role almost played by Jodie Foster: “We ended up not doing that”, FarOutMagazine.com, August 20, 2025.

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About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

（作者：张欣）