Department of redundancy
Department

D Vautier
1/2023

Recently I have been searching for good redundant expressions and amazingly I have found very few.  It seems that the school marms and dictionary dictators have taken all the fun out of English, including good healthy everyday non-redundant expressions like true fact and friendly fire and condemned them to the dungeon of incorrectness.  Redundant expressions are rare and quite hard to find because of the remarkable ability of the language to express so many shades of meaning.  English probably is the most expressive language ever devised because it engages in all kinds of ways to convey meaning that are usually obvious to everybody except the Dictionariests and Wiktionariests.  A truly redundant expression is one that offers little additional context to an expression.  That's why they are so rare.

English words can mean so many different things depending on context.  A redundancy is an expression that repeats exactly the same idea without adding a subtle shade and that is why they are so rare.  In English English (i.e. spoken in Great Britain) the word “right” means all kinds of things depending on how you say it or in what context it is used, often like “I hear what you just said but I have a hard time believing it.” 

I have attempted recently to review hundreds of supposedly “redundant” expressions and I described a few of the more common just to point out that they are in fact perfectly good and often cleaver ways of saying things.  They will continue to be used because language is defined by users, not by the school marms and strict Wiktionariests.

First let's talk about the expressions that I feel may be truly redundant and even perhaps stupid.

True Redundant Expressions

Basic fundamentals.  When I was in the 7th grade I checked out a book from the library called "Astronomy - Basic Fundamentals".  Was it fundamental basics, or basic basics, of fundamental fundamentals?  I never did find out but I had stumbled upon my first true redundant expression.  This was not necessarily a mistake but does express either a mistake or an attempt at phony sophistication.  I never found out which expression was more basic.

Climate change.  Climate is itself defined as a change in the weather system over time.  When people say “climate change” it is quite redundant.  It’s really saying “weather change change.”

I notice that meteorologists are careful to avoid this expression and correctly say “climate”, otherwise they are introducing a belief system.

Armed Gunman is a true redundancy but it does add a lot of color to things.  After all an armed gunman is more dangerous than just a plain old gunman.

Totally acceptable expressions

That are considered "redundant" by the Wiktionariests

Friendly fire. A very common and acceptable expression that identifies the accidental firing on friendly forces.  Nothing unfriendly about it.

Current fad.  Fads come and then go.  So what?  A few fads come and stay for a long time like wrist watches.  There is nothing wrong with saying that the fad is here.  Pronouns are a current fad.  Bear coats, bustles and hula-hoops were past fads. Just because a fad may be transitory does not associate it to a particular time period.  You can say that a fad is current or past and that’s just fine.

Prior planning. Advanced planning. Why would this ever be considered redundant? When I was in the service we often spoke of the four P’s, (piss poor prior planning).  It is totally possible to make on-the-spot planning decisions which means you can have “current planning” as well as “prior planning” or even “future planning”.  The idea that “prior planning” is in any way redundant is just piss poor present thinking.

True fact.  I use the expression all the time to mean that I truly believe the following fact appears to be reliable and I really believe it to be true.

We have abundant examples throughout literature and history of expressions in almost any language all over the world of the “true fact” adjuration, all the way to the Bible (Truly, I say unto you) or in Virgil “O Socii” (listen up People) and in everyday army barracks talk.  In the army when you begin saying something serious there was always the obligatory introduction “I shit you not”.  This all happened. This is a true fact.  I shit you not.

Free gift.  In today's society as well as any society there are strings attached to just about everything free.  If a gift is offered and you have to go pick it up or listen to a sales pitch, it is not a “free gift”.  If a gift is offered with no strings attached it is a “free gift”

Advance notice.  You can have a “notice” any time but if you get your notice before the rest of the crowd it is an “advance notice”.  So take early notice.

High rate-of-speed.  I always chuckled at this one but it does sound a little more serious than plain old “high speed”.  I suspect that when a dispatcher announces “Suspect proceeding north on East Marginal Way South at a high rate-of-speed”, it just sounds better.

Open secret.  The expression means that everybody knows something that they are not supposed to know. Just keep this to yourselves.  OK?

Unexpected surprise.  There are expected surprises like baseball bats, dolls and new clothes.  A Lamborghini Urus is an unexpected surprise.

Deafening silence.  Just a nice metaphor, nothing to see (hear) here. Probably a little redundant. Probably more oxymoronic.

Actual experience.  You can have vicarious experiences, virtual experiences, spiritual experiences, extraterrestrial experiences and yah, actual experiences too.  Case closed.

Added bonus.  When you receive a bonus and the boss likes you, he may also give you an added bonus.  I’ll take it.

Difficult dilemma. Believe me, there are also easy dilemmas.  Which way do I cut the pizza?

Direct confrontation.  How about indirect confrontations?  I get into a lot of those, especially over the phone and on the web.

End result - final result.  We can have lots of result types.  Let’s see. We have early results, intermediate results and unknown results.  I get lots of unknown results.

Few in number.  I suppose this is redundant but it seems more ethical to fight people who are few in number than to fight just a few people.  Besides they are easier to beat when there's just a few.

New beginning.  Winston Churchill said: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”  New beginning is in there somewhere.

Foreign imports. This is redundant but the use of just imports sounds too weak. So make sure people understand.

Invited guest.  Roger came to the party without an invitation.  I told the bouncer to throw Roger out. He’s an uninvited guest.  Just don’t  throw out any invited guests.