The Trouble With Tautology

 


Dealing With Double Trouble!

 

While reading Jeff Anderson’s 'Ten Things A Writer Needs' a while back, I discovered Jeff tells his students that tautology means ‘DOUBLE TROUBLE.’  

This mention of tautology sparked a memory of how annoying it is to hear such redundancy, used so frequently, and so unwittingly. 

 

Here are a few that immediately come to mind:

At the present time

Very unique

Mystery puzzle

Wet monsoon

Past history

Pair of twins

Free gift

Sad misfortune

Invited guests

End result

Boat marina

Will and testament

ATM machine

I'm sure you get the idea…


Tautology occurs everywhere. While living in America some years back, the frequently used term, ‘TUNA FISH sandwich’ left me constantly bemused. 

At JFK airport, I would sit waiting for my flight home to Australia and at regular intervals I would hear the announcement, ‘This is the LAST and FINAL call for flight…’  and start twitching. 

In Australia, I frequently hear people offering an opinion and qualifying it with, ‘If you ask ME PERSONALLY, well I think…’ and I’m sure we don’t need to hear FINAL and SHOWDOWN alongside each other every time a sporting contest is promoted on television. I certainly don’t need to RETURN BACK to the program I am viewing! Tautology is rife on television.

 

Ah yes, it happens everywhere. Tautology is not strictly a figure of speech, but merely a commonly occurring error in speech and writing. In writing, such redundancy is referred to as, pleonasm. I confess, I did not know that until I did some research. Well, whatever it is, it clearly annoys some of us more than others…

And, just remember that when you say, Sahara Desert that the word -sahara, means desert.

 

 

 

 

 

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