# Hijack vs. OT
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijack-vs-ot/272431
**Category:** About This Message Board
**Created:** [November 1, 2004, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijack-vs-ot/272431 "2004-11-01T22:56:02Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@WeRSauron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WeRSauron)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2004, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijack-vs-ot/272431/1 "2004-11-01T22:56:02Z")
What’s the difference between a hijack and something that’s off topic?
WRS
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2004, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijack-vs-ot/272431/2 "2004-11-01T22:58:31Z")
I’ll take a guess. Nothing?
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### Author:  [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2004, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijack-vs-ot/272431/3 "2004-11-01T23:11:26Z")
As threads and their topics vary, so do the circumstances.
It’s really impossible to say, as threads evolve and change as they are pushed and shaped by the people that contribute to them. It’s very individual to each thread.
If it’s really off topic, it’ll be so blatant that there’s no doubting someone made a mistake. We deal with those accordingly.
Usually we let threads live and die on their own merits . . . wherever that takes them. Drift is inevitable.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
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### Author:  [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2004, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijack-vs-ot/272431/4 "2004-11-02T12:10:21Z")
Hijacks are one of the things that make this board so fascinating. Watching the ideas whiz and zip and careen and cartwheel and coruscate in a dizzying myriad of directions is a blast.
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### Author:  [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2004, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijack-vs-ot/272431/5 "2004-11-02T14:06:49Z")
…and logging on at 8 in the morning to find that someone has correctly used “coruscate” in a sentance (and made it sound perfectly natural) is just the icing on the DopeCake.
(That was a hijack. Or it was off-topic. But see how well it worked into the coruscating flow?)
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### Author:  [@Shrinking\_Violet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shrinking_Violet)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2004, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijack-vs-ot/272431/6 "2004-11-02T15:39:34Z")
> [@WhyNot](#):
>
> …and logging on at 8 in the morning to find that someone has correctly used “coruscate” in a **sentance** (and made it sound perfectly natural) is just the icing on the DopeCake.
> (That was a hijack. Or it was off-topic. But see how well it worked into the coruscating flow?)
You’ve just ruined _my_ day.
😉
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### Author:  [@TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TellMeI_mNotCrazy)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2004, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijack-vs-ot/272431/7 "2004-11-02T18:39:38Z")
My personal definition of hijack vs. OT is, a hijack invites further discussion along a different, but related, theme from the OP. An OT comment is generally a standalone comment that doesn’t really invite further comment, and doesn’t really have a lot to do with the subject at hand.
So if an OP is about great restaurants:
La Tuscana is a great restaurant with wonderful atmosphere, if expensive.
\ it seems more prevalent that the quality of a restaurant has a lot to do with the price of its menu these days, does anyone else notice that? \
OT: The dry cleaner next to La Tuscana, on the other hand, should be avoided at all costs, because they really will “take you to the cleaners”.