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.
LMAO!
My favorite is “Military Intelligence”.
Please refer all off these to the Department of Redundacies Departments.
ATM Machine!
VIN Number
CVT Transmision
I saw this on a package of rice once: “Plant-grown rice”
Granted, this was probably an advertisement gimmick.
It takes two languages, but name “The La Brea Tar Pits” has always driven me nuts. The The Tar Tar Pits.
lol… that does sound pretty silly!
I grew up near a town called Vista View. It always drove me nuts. Vista means view!!!
Don’t forget The Los Angeles Angels. The The Angels Angels.
OMG… you are completely right… and I’ve never noticed these!
This is a little more out there, but I know several kids named Sean Ian (last name) —
so, basically John John.
In Spanish: “ver con los ojos”, “subir para arriba”, “bajar para abajo”…
MJ
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”
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!
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?
So Coop, are we talking hyperbolic superalatives?
Allan Sherman (the joke songwriter) combined both oxymorons and repetitive redundancy: “A genuine copy of a fake Dior”
The one that really bugs me: “Enter to Win”. No, I want to enter to lose.
Along that line… Free giveaway. If it’s not free, then you’re not giving it away, you’re selling it.
another alternative does make sense if one has already brought up the first alternative.
Near proximity
“Necessary essentials” (on a list of camping items I was to bring)
Forward planning…
Yep. Bugs me too, that one!
A pet peeve of mine is when people say “irregardless”. Drives me up the wall.
Sit down?
Nvmd. You can also sit up.
Chai tea
In Russian, tea is “chai” in fact, and in many other languages as well. 🙂
Exactly
New innovation…
Yikes. It’s 6:42 pm at night and I’m completely done. These examples are adequate enough.
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.
True fact
Haha. Good one
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)
Live Nude Nudes
Chai Flavored Chai
I hate “Remember back when…”
Ilona reminded me of George Carlin’s comedy routine. It started with “jumbo shrmp” and it was pretty funny.
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.
Please RSVP to …..
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.
My personal favorite of my indidual self is WLAN cable, but that is neither repetitive nor a redundancy.
*individual