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Repetitive Redundancies

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Have you ever seen a phrase Free Gift?  Buy this and get a free gift?  Open an account and get a free gift?

gift
noun
noun: gift; plural noun: gifts
1. a thing given willingly to someone without payment; a present.
“a Christmas gift”
synonyms:
present, handout, donation, offering, bestowal, bonus, award, endowment;

Colloquial English is filled with these little redundancies.  Here are a few that bug me.

  • Stupid idiot
  • Another alternative
  • Final outcome
  • I, personally,
  • Fake wig
  • Collaborate together
  • End result
  • Murdered to death (I’ve seen this in a newspaper.)
  • Extra bonus
  • Unexpected surprise

Feel free to add your own.

 

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Comments

    • This is a repetition, where the last word in an acronym is repeated after the acronym. It’s not quite the same thing, it’s actually somewhat worse. Which is why I also get quite annoyed at these. In telecom for instance, DSL line (where DSL stands for Digital Subscriber Line).

  5. I’d argue with the fake wig example.
    I come from a culture where women use wigs regularly. When someone in my community says fake or real wig they mean a wig made of fake hair or real human hair. So if I hear someone say that they are wearing a fake wig I understand that their wig is made of fake hair. Thus it isn’t repetitive because both words have separate connotations if not denotations.
    This could just be a cultural thing and exclusive to the communities I am a part of, but it is something to ponder. 😉

      • I think advance warning is fine. Doesn’t it mean that the warning came sufficiently in advance to prepare for whatever was coming?

      • This one is not a redundancy, but it goes along with the surviving widow: I work at a newspaper, and we frequently see obituaries that say “survivors include [several names] and the late [name].”

    • I agree, having both real hair and ‘fun’ hair wigs I understand the term.
      Also unexpected surprise. You expect a surprise on your birthday, but getting one on a non special day would be an unexpected surprise.

    • We use final outcome and end result in education as there are lots of little goals and steps with hoped for results that must be met before moving on to the next step, until ultimately meeting the final goal and hopefully and reaching an end result.

    • any indicates individual;
      all is collective.
      One might say that any member of a group is welcome, yet might not be able to accommodate all members of the group.
      Any and all indicates the inclusion of each member of the group individually, without specification of which or what portion, as well as the entire group as one.

    • I’ll give you close proximity, but how does mass exodus apply? Mass in this case relates to quantity and exodus relates to the action.

    • “Close proximity” drives me crazy! There is no such thing as “far proximity” – at least not yet.

  10. absolutely essential, advance reservations, add up, exact same, nape of the neck, lying politician (lol)

    not a repetition but using the word “decimated” incorrectly. Supposed to mean a reduction of one in ten but has taken on a general meaning of destroying a large percentage / annihilate. I’m a numbers person so it gets me every time I hear it used that way.

      • Yes I agree – nape is a specific part of the neck – the back of the neck. You certainly don’t mean nape of the elbow 🙂 So nape by itself is okay and nape of the neck is redundant.

    • As Italian I can explain why decimate now means death and destruction, during WWII German soldiers on Italian soil, used to decimate people: for each German soldier killed (by partisans or american soldiers) resulted in 10 people (usually Italians – included women and children) executed. I think it happen in all the country in Europe invaded by nazi, but I can be sure just for Italy.
      Probably soldiers who came back from Italy after the war started (and Italian/European immigrants) started to use it to describe mass killing.

  11. I would actually argue there are circumstances where “another alternative” applies. When presented with an undesirable alternative to a plan, the boss might ask for another alternative.

    It’s regularly misused (in truth abused), however.

    • There can also be intermediate results, depending on scale. Proximal or immediate results also, where an action can cause an immediate, desired result, but in the end will cause an undesired outcome… Or vice-versa.

  12. How about ‘wake up dead’? How? usually by people of incomplete education, though have seen it used… *jaw wide open*

  14. Hot water heater, really how did it get hot before it was Heated? Not a redundancy but the replacement of “Have a nice day/evening/afternoon etc” with “Have a nice one!”

    • I was going to do “hot water heater” but you beat me to it. That is a phrase that has annoyed me for decades… Well since I was mature enough to understand redundancies

    • Or “have a blessed one” which irritates me as I am a literal person because then I wonder a blessed what– groceries, stock feed, lawn mower parts…..– on the way to the vehicle. I have noticed an uptick in that said by the cashiers after I check out as I leave a brick and mortar store. At first it seemed limited to what was probably a religious faith group who did say ‘have a blessed day’ but now it is everywhere. not really a redundancy like hot water heater is.

      fake wigs is not a redundancy to me but the difference between a wig made of real hair or a wig made of man made products which makes a big difference cost wise and care wise. Faux fur is a redundancy to me as to me faux fur is no where as warm as real fur and as with any man made product you have to be careful what chemicals you utilize ie no Clorox.

      • “Hot water heater” says “the place that hot water is made” to me. I fear I don’t find it redundant in that connotation.

    • Ya, I would agree. Reading the list there was something about that one that made me go, ‘hmmmm…’ as it didn’t feel like it fit with the others.

  18. In the name of Chris Jericho and his near perfect run in WWE in 2016, I reject your “stupid idiot” mention! 🙂

    • We don’t use that in the UK so I’ve always wondered if it just means a standard pizza or some kind of weird pastry concoction with pizza toppings on top LOL

    • Well, pizza doesn’t always come pie-shaped, so pizza pie could distinguish from square pizza or pizza box or something like that, so I don’t really count that one as redundant.

  20. Yeah, disagree that some of them are redundant.

    Stupid idiot – as opposed to the idiot savant?
    Another alternative – as opposed the already given/proposed alternative
    Final outcome – as opposed to the preliminary outcome
    I, personally, – as opposed to my opinion in a professional capacity (e.g. I personally would prefer Thai food, but I think we should serve sandwiches for the work buffet)
    Fake wig – as opposed to a wig made with real hair
    End result – see final outcome

  21. I would suggest that adverb + adj isn’t necessary redundant on its own, it’s just become overused in our language.

    eg. If “hilariously funny” was rarely used, then the adverb would be appropriate because it modifies the adjective to say that it was really funny. Another example someone used was “absolutely essential”. Technically, this is one of the purposes of adverbs (-ly). (?)

    Isn’t this why proofreaders now recommend removing the use of “very” because it became so overused that it in a way weakens the adjective – if that makes sense?

    (I’m willing to be corrected on any of this – I’m definitely not an English major or anything)

    • new and improved – cannot believe no one mentioned it and my fav – defrost and thaw…..both the same my friends

      • It seems to me new and improved is an oxymoron rather than a redundancy. How can something new be improved? Doesn’t it have to already have existed to be improved?

        • It can be a new formula (the example I have in mind is the “New Coke” from the early 90s? late 80s?) and improved can be considered an opinion (again “New Coke” as an example, my mother utterly despised it) English can be such an odd language with exceptions everywhere.

        • I prefer ‘old and inferior’ as in many cases the ‘new and improved’ product does not perform to same standards as the ‘old and inferior’ product did. However, sometimes the ‘new and improved’ actually does better job although I object to the price gouging. for me it is usually I am being sarcastic when I refer to ‘new and improved’. an example would be the ‘new and improved’ ‘spark plugs for my 5 year old push lawn mower do not last as long or the air filter that the book says is correct one for my ancient (10 to 15 year old) Kubota Toy or the thermostats for my 1996 ford car that control the heating and cooling system which overheats on a regular basis.
          But sometimes a redundancy in the system can save human life because the secondary backup functioned long enough for safe evacuation such as when moronic teen rips hydraulic line off of Toy while showing off for friends while carrying an excess weight load.

  22. Done finished
    Sparkling shiny
    In my opinion, I think…
    With honest sincerity… :introduce massive eye rolling here:

    • Sparkling and shiny are not the same thing.
      Using a diamond as an example, sparkling would refer to the dispersion and scintillation created by the facets. The same diamond cut as a cabochon would not sparkle, but the surface (assuming it’s well polished) would still be shiny.

  24. There are so many of these in the English language . . .
    Aid and abet
    Blend together
    Add an additional . . .
    Difficult dilemma
    Frozen ice
    Actual facts
    Filled to capacity
    Regular routine
    Artificial prosthesis
    Cease and desist
    Circle around
    Drop down
    Evolve over time
    Exact same
    Illustrated drawing
    Lift up
    Surrounded on all sides
    etc.

    • I don’t know, cease and desist don’t necessarily mean the same thing. Cease doesn’t imply a timeframe; you can stop for now, but you could restart later. Desist is more permanent. So to me, that phrase is more like “stop, and never do it again”. But maybe I’m justifying the phrase. Maybe because that’s about the only lawyer speak anyone can understand without a law degree.

    • You can fill a glass halfway, right? So “filled to capacity” isn’t redundant; it’s specifying how much filling happened.

      • I don’t think so. If it’s halfway, it isn’t filled. That’s why I don’t care for the question about seeing a glass as half full or half empty.

        • The glass isn’t half full or half empty; it’s twice the size it needs to be. (Engineering joke; I love that t-shirt.)

  25. I always hated he died of natural causes. What exactly are natural
    causes and are there unnatural causes? Would that be homicide or murder?
    Or unspeakable horror.

    • “He died of natural causes” is the polite way of saying, “He died of old age.” Death is expected and the “cause” is irrelevant.

      • It can also refer to dying of an illness or medical condition. It definitely means not murder, not suicide, not an overdose, not a car accident.

      • It can also mean an unexplained death. Corners use natural causes on a death certificate if they cannot find a definite cause of death. My older brother’s death certificate has natural causes as the explanation because when the autopsy was completed, the chief medical examiner couldn’t find a concrete cause of death.

    • Dead man walking suggests imminent death. Like someone terminally ill or someone who has a contract on his head.

    • The phrase dead calm makes me think of nautical terms. You can have calm waters that still show light breeze or minor disturbance in the water. Dead calm means no wind at all and flat water.

  27. I agree with all the above, but the speaker may not know they are being redundant? If the speaker is receptive correct them. Redundancies such as politically correct are the ones I detest. In a recent Community College class, a woman older than eighty used the word mankind to indicate both male and female. She was verbally chastised by several sixty-year old women for not being politically correct. What those youngsters didn’t realize, that older woman’s formal education ended in the early 1950s, when mankind was the correct word. Several News Readers are saying, “The murder suspect, who was found guilty last week, will be sentenced tomorrow. The other suspects will be sentenced next week.” I presume the Editor should comprehend the difference between a person suspected of a crime and a person found guilty of a crime.

  28. Enormously large.
    Exotically foreign.
    Soaking wet.
    It goes on and on. Some of these may be an attempt to emphasize the concept, but many are just ignorance.
    (Ignorant stupidity? Aaargh!)

  29. Not quite what you asked for, but I hate when a magazine offers a free copy of their magazine, then if you subscribe, instead of getting the 6 issues that go along with a one year subscription, you only get 5! So you just wound up paying for your free copy. Grrrr.

  30. A town in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, in California, is named Los Altos, variously translated as “the highlands,” “the heights,” or “the hills”. A newer suburb, further into the mountains, was given the bilingually redundant name Los Altos Hills (“the hills” hills).

  32. False facade (I’ve seen this in the newspapers and on TV news!)

    And like Los Altos Hills, in Los Angeles there are the La Brea Tar Pits, which translates to The Tar Pits Tar Pits.

    And, although it is not a redundancy, items for sale that state something like “20% FREE!” Can I bring in a scale and remove 20% without paying anything?

    • I agree with you. Using a word from another language and not knowing its meaning may end in a redundancy. It always bugs me when I hear about the Japanese breeds of dogs such as the Shiba Inu dog or the Akita Inu dog. Inu is dog in Japanese so we get the Shiba Dog dog and the Akita Dog dog. Bugs me to no end.
      As for the rest of the redundancies some of them seem poetic to me and others just funny.

  33. I have nothing to add, it’s been ‘one of those days’. I do, however, thank you all for the laugh. Such fun and greatly appreciated xxxxx 🙂

  34. This might be an American thing but I’m Australian and I really don’t like “off of” As in ‘get off of me…’
    Also, PIN number, argh!

    • Along those same lines, my dad used to correct me all the time when I’d say something like “I went to go…”.

  43. Disagreeably dank

    Me, myself, and I personally (hee, couldn’t resist!) have yet to encounter an agreeable dankness, but maybe someone, somewhere has.

    • Presently I’m studying Japanese. Sentences end with the verb. Everything else comes before. So, if at the beginning of the sentence you don’t specify who is doing the action, like “I personally”, then you have no idea who did what. Therefore, I personally have no problem with “I personally”. Tee, hee.

  45. RPG game. Every time I hear it I want to tell the person they are a rookie gamer. Once I actually did, and told the pompous guy who argued it he could come play with the big kids once he knew what real RPGs are.

  47. I would argue that “another alternative” is not redundant if used correctly. It should be used if one has already provided an alternative to the default; thus, another alternative means a further alternative to the default.
    It is, of course, redundant if used when presenting the first alternative.

  48. Those things don’t bug me as much as misuse of words: alternate for alternative, lay for lie, less for fewer, I for me, etc. But I’m pushing 70, and language changes over time, so I’ve had to get used to things like that. All I can do is pray to Saint Safire. 😉

    • Don’t get me started on that. “Its” and “it’s”. How hard is it to remember that you use “it’s” as a contraction of “it is” and that’s the ONLY time you use the apostrophe.

      • On the subject of contractions, I bemoan the intelligence of all those who use “would of,” “should of,” “could of” instead of the correct “would’ve,” “should’ve,” “could’ve.”

        • Absolutely. And using your instead of you’re. I have also seen you’re when they mean your in books.

          • Oddly enough, I find that as I get older I make more of those mistakes. I usually catch them before I send an email, but I’ve actually typed right when I meant write or they’re for their. Very bizarre. I’m blaming it on typing one version more often than the other and my fingers just type what they’re used to.

      • Those are right there with people who make plurals by adding “apostrophe s”. Unfortunately, that is showing up a lot in self published (I assume) books. I saw it in a TITLE on Amazon. (Something like “My Two Dad’s”. I want to yell “My two dad’s WHAT!” at the author.)
        I don’t think elementary schools teach spelling or grammar anymore. I have no other explanation for this ignorance. As much as I’d like to, I will refrain from calling it stupidity.
        Sorry. Preaching to the choir, I know.

        • I hate when they add an apostrophe “s” to an acronym when they’re trying to make it plural. Possessive and plural rules still apply to acronyms. So it’s “I bought two CDs”, not “I bought two CD’s”.

  49. Rapid urban growth can really make a area less appealing. I am amazed at the metro area I live in and the county specifically. I did not realize there was anywhere in my county to grow unless they built vertically or demolished buildings. It is the most densely populated county in the state and has had that title for years.

    I am sure the density of people, buildings, etc. helped extend the hurricane power outages to a degree. My power company has some explaining to do concerning the length of the outages across a good chunk of the state as well. ( I was 4 days with out power; other people were longer). I feel for the people of Puerto Rico; they truly went through a horrific hurricane.

  50. It always bothers me when the new employee announcements say “She is married to her spouse…..”. Who else would she be married to? Her mother?

  53. I saw this on a package of rice once: “Plant-grown rice”
    Granted, this was probably an advertisement gimmick.

  54. It takes two languages, but name “The La Brea Tar Pits” has always driven me nuts. The The Tar Tar Pits.

  56. This is a little more out there, but I know several kids named Sean Ian (last name) —
    so, basically John John.

  58. This reminds me of one of my favourite Terry Pratchett jokes from his Discworld novel Interesting Times.
    “I heard the Empire has a tyrannical and repressive government!”
    “What form of government is that?” said Ponder Stibbons.
    “A tautology,” said the Dean”

  59. Off topic but reading wildfire again and come across Nevada referring to tv show “justice and code”. Cracks me up!! Doesn’t matter how many times I read it – sets me off every time and I keep chuckling for quite a while. Just love it!

  60. Another alternative == “We have an alternative in blah, and another alternative in blech.”

    Final outcome == “Tentatively the outcome is foo as the winner, please wait for verification of the final outcome.”

    I, personally == “Speaking for the company I’ll state that such and so is what happened.” I, personally, think that is a crock and I’m resigning.”

    Fake wig == “We have fake wigs made from the finest strands of polystyrene. We also carry high end wigs made from human hair.”

    Collaborate together == “It would be nice if we could collaborate together, but since you live in New Zealand we’ll have to collaborate via email.”

    End result == “We have partial results from the experiment, but we will have to wait another two weeks before we have the end result.”

    Extra bonus == “Not only do you get a bonus hair twiddler, but you if you act immediately you’ll get an extra bonus of years supply of Rogaine.”

    Unexpected surprise == “I expected that you would surprise me with something special for my birthday, but this life size sex doll is a truly unexpected surprise.”

    ’nuff said?

  61. Allan Sherman (the joke songwriter) combined both oxymorons and repetitive redundancy: “A genuine copy of a fake Dior”

    • Along that line… Free giveaway. If it’s not free, then you’re not giving it away, you’re selling it.

  72. It’s all about nuances, which the English language excels at. Admittedly there are redundancies, but something like another alternative makes sense if there are more than 1 alternative to the original option and an unexpected surprise does make a weird sense, in that you can anticipate a surprise (I suspected I was going to get a surprise 50th birthday party – so not technically a surprise when it happened, though it was fun watching my husband tying himself in knots trying to keep it a “surprise”, but the unexpected surprise was the location – Greece). However, I suspect most, if not all languages, contain constructs that don’t actually make sense when analysed.

    But what about the complete false worshiping of the “you must not use a split infinitive” rule that is still being taught? It is a complete fallacy and there is no logic to it, no grammar rule is broken and is solely the result of a couple of people at the end of the 19th century just giving their opinion that it felt wrong. In fact there are some sentences where if you don’t use a split infinitive, you can’t really convey the correct meaning, eg: a sentence containing “to more than double”; to move “more than” to elsewhere in the sentence would be ungrammatical. Or “She decided to gradually get rid of the teddy bears she had collected” The adverb “gradually” splits the infinitive, but where else would you put it that wasn’t ungrammatical or changes the meaning of the sentence?

    Teachers must stop teaching this rubbish. Sorry, rant over, but, as you may have gathered, this really annoys me.

    • Couldn’t agree more. Sometimes if you don’t split the infinitive a sentence just appears clumsy and doesn’t flow or. as you say, doesn’t make sense. Which would you prefer, “To boldly go” or “to go boldly”?

      I think Winston Churchill succinctly pointed out the, sometimes, ridiculous nature of “correct” English grammar when (allegedly) replying to a civil servant who complained about the use of prepositions at the end of sentences – “This is the kind of English up with which I will not put”. The grammatical sentence is “This is the kind of English with which I will not put up”. It’s correct but it sounds kind of weird. Who speaks like that these days or even writes like that. Most people would say “This is the kind of English I will not put up with” and not give a hang about the preposition being at the end of the sentence. Sometimes (quite often actually) there are exceptions to the rules and some rules are just plain silly. Language is constantly evolving and, as long a people can understand one another, what does it matter.

      • I’ve always loved that Churchill example. What you say is true, English is always evolving and if you allow silly grammar rules to get in the way of clarity and understanding then it only makes the language weaker.

  74. This: “…I can’t not (do something)…” The “not” is usually meant to be spoken emphatically. This form of idiocy has been appearing in far too many contemporary novels lately. Every time I see it, I want to hurl my Kindle across the room. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in your books, though. If you’re ever tempted, please – for the love of all that is literary – don’t do it. (I mean, don’t, don’t not do it. LOL)

  78. On the specific point of “stupid idiot”

    One could justify it by one’s willingness to express a staunch opinion. I would suggest to use a more rythmic formula like “stupidly idiotic imbecile” to convey the true nature of the insult but most people prefer to let their cussing fly without trying to make an statemet of it.

  80. Commenting because it is similar in concept and drove me crazy – Seventies tv commercial stated that competition had no meat in sauce and ended with a claim that their sauce had “twice as much meat as COMPETITORS NAME.” Twice as much as zero is still zero, people.

  81. My personal favorite of my indidual self is WLAN cable, but that is neither repetitive nor a redundancy.

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