Please note the following notice from the department of redundancy department: “This office will not tolerate redundancy in this office. Thank you for noticing this notice, your noting it will be noted.”
“Why?” you wonder. “I’m not a user of redundancies. I don’t repeat myself myself.”
That’s OK. I’m here to point out the pitfalls of redundancy by way of several helpful examples, samples, and representations. First of all, consider: passing fad, old adage, past experience, end result, suddenly exploded, and (my pet peeve) free gift. One of my all-time favorite redundancies is the sticker on the convenience-store gas pump that tells me to “Prepay before pumping gas.” I can’t very well prepay for the gas after I’ve pumped it, now can I?
Even if you do lapse into redundancy once in a while, don’t worry, you’re in good company. Even super-smart columnist Marilyn Vos Savant was recently taken to task by several of her readers for having written about a “hot water heater.” Why, they wondered, would anyone want to heat water that’s already hot?
Redundancies not only use extra words and can lead to confusion, but they can sometimes get you in trouble. For instance, some redundancies may stereotype people, so use them with care. While it’s OK to say that an air bag in a politician’s car is redundant, it’s probably best to avoid saying the same about your spouse. The late Irma Bombeck reminded us that “working mother” is also redundant.
I want to caution you about the use of what Buzzfeed calls “RAS syndrome,” or, quite literally, “redundant acronym syndrome syndrome.” If you talk about your VIN number or your PIN number, I implore you to stop it right now —the “N” already stands for “number.” Don’t talk about an ATM machine either, (especially the 24-hour ones), and do avoid the faux pas of writing “Please RSVP,” when it already means “Respond, if you please.” And then there are those pesky LCD displays . . .
A close relative of redundancy is something called pleonasm, which is nothing more than using more words than necessary, either as a fault of style or for effect, such as, “Could you repeat that again?” (assuming you haven’t already repeated it, that is).
Another relative is tautology, or the redundant repetition of the meaning of a sentence, such as answering the question “When will they get here?” with “When they get here,” or Seanan McGuire’s observation that “The first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club.”
So, is being redundant the same as using a pleonasm or tautology? One way to find out is to look it up, as the late Robin Williams once did, only to discover that, “In the dictionary under ‘redundant’ it says, ‘See redundant.'”
And that’s all I have to say about redundancy because I’m getting tired of repeating myself.
Jim Witherell of Lewiston is a writer and lover of words whose work includes “L.L. Bean: The Man and His Company” and “Ed Muskie: Made in Maine.”
Send questions/comments to the editors.
