A few days ago, Claire said she was going to Costco later in the week and one of things she wanted to get was tuna fish. I’m not sure why, but it occurred to me when she said it, that it was redundant. I’m pretty sure that tuna can only be a fish, so it isn’t necessary to mention fish.
I think I’ve touched on this before, but our language is filled with redundancies…. I often see advertisements offering a “free gift.” Watching congress debate recently, I heard the term “affluent rich” used a number of times. That seems redundant to me. Some other redundant phrases I’ve heard include: repeat again, revert back, proceed ahead, past history, honest truth, different varieties, and also — just to name a few.
I did a little extensive research and found that the use of more words (or even word parts) than necessary to express an idea clearly is known as pleonasm. I would say that the use of redundant terms fall into that category. Another term or concept that I uncovered is “rhetorical tautology” that is essentially the same thing said more than once in different words — e.g., cold ice or burning fire. As usual, there’s no point to all this, my mind just wandered over to how strange, and sometimes stupid our language is — like when we use terms or descriptions such as hopelessly optimistic, Hell’s Angels, half true, bankrupt millionaire, jumbo shrimp, sanitary landfill or pretty ugly.
These types of expressions are referred to as oxymorons — that’s when two incompatible words are used together in one expression. And while we’re on the subject, the correct plural of oxymoron is oxymora. But we continue to hear and use these expressions every day… we even turn a blind eye when they are as ridiculous as “House Ethics Committee.”
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