Independent Sources’ list of unnecessary redundancies repeated more than once
I, myself, have been working on a written list of unnecessary redundancies. How many of these do you hear or (gasp) use yourself? (Yes, “written list” and “unnecessary redundancies” would both qualify):
hollow tube
armed gunman
freezing cold
free gift
near miss
financial accounting
natural instinct
absolutely perfect
past history
new beginning
grown man
silly clown
visual images
SAM missle
ATM machine
Oxymorons:
-
awfully good
genuine reproduction
pretty ugly
almost always
touch-tone dialing
Bonus:
We’ve all heard that you park on a driveway but drive on a parkway, but have you thought that when you send something by boat it is cargo but when you send it by car it’s a shipment?
Update: Just found a funny site called Fun w/Words that had these good ones:
* (actual) experience
* (advance) planning
* (advance) reservations
* (advance) warning
* all meet (together)
* (armed) gunman
* at (12) midnight
* at (12) noon
* autobiography (of my life)
* (awkward) predicament
* (baby) boy was born
* (basic) fundamentals
* cease (and desist)
* cheap (price)
* (close) proximity
* cold (temperature)
* commute (back and forth)
* consensus (of opinion)
* (difficult) dilemma
* each (and every)
* (empty) space
* (end) result
* estimated (roughly) at
* filled (to capacity)
* (free) gift
* (frozen) ice
* (general) public
* green (in color)
* join (together)
* (natural) instinct
* never (at any time)
* (null and) void
* (pair of) twins
* (past) experience
* (poisonous) venom
* (pre-)recorded
* reason is (because)
* (regular) routine
* (small) speck
* (suddenly) exploded
* surrounded (on all sides)
* (unexpected) surprise had
I have to admit that I probably use some of these such as “unexpected surprise” (whoops) and “end result” (now I’m embarassed). We can blame lawyers for “cease and desist” but by billing by the hour they are all about being wordy (IMHO).
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November 13th, 2006 at 7:59 am
I’ve seen various permutations of “lethal fatality” in news stories. Trying to remember what they were…
November 13th, 2006 at 8:02 am
[...] 5/adults-on-myspace/”> “Oh no! Mom and Dad are on MySpace again!” Update: Independent Sources’ list of unnecessary redundancies repeated more than once [...]
November 13th, 2006 at 10:32 am
stinky turd
November 13th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
Murdered to death.
November 13th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
You missed the Department of Redundancy Department.
I’m working on my own lists: made up words(eg “irregardless”; “acclimitated”); and often confused/misused words (wary/weary).
November 13th, 2006 at 10:34 pm
Independent Consultant?
November 13th, 2006 at 10:47 pm
I’m also thinking “individual packet” is redundant and in fact “individual” in front of almost any noun is probably unnecessarily wordy. Wait, that’s redundant too since I could just have said “wordy”. When is being wordy “necessary”? Damn this is hard.
November 14th, 2006 at 9:50 am
One thing is certain: People love lists.
November 14th, 2006 at 10:07 am
Particularly lists of things.
November 17th, 2006 at 8:51 am
I know I’m missin’ an opprtunity for a “funny joke” here somewhere…
November 19th, 2006 at 7:27 am
Bill Lalor….
My favrit…..”orientated”
November 29th, 2006 at 10:59 am
Consider this: someone is throwing you a surprise party. You have become aware of the fact that the surprise party is going to be thrown, however, you do not know when it will be thrown. When you arrived at the party, would it not be an “expected surprise”? Hence, the opposite is an unexpected surprise, of course.
November 29th, 2006 at 12:40 pm
I’ll give you this. You’ve thought it through more than most but I still think it’s redundant.
BTW, I just google searched and over 1.4 million results came up with the vast majority being unnecessary redundancies. Does that explanation clear it up?
Can you count the number of redundancies that I intentionallly included on purpose?