Friday 11 November 2011

you can say that again

This post is about tautology, a figure of speech where a word or phrase is unnecessary since the same idea is already in the sentence. It is not necessarily wrong, but it can be annoying and is not good style. Consider the following examples. Are some more acceptable than others?

to reverse back
in close proximity
a new innovation
in my opinion, I think that
completely unique



The last 2 annoy me more than the first three! My husband always shouts, "You can't reverse forwards!" when someone says the first one on the television. If you want to share any tautologies that annoy you,  please comment!

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