Richard Kallan has a new book out entitled, "Armed Gunmen, True Facts, and Other Ridiculous Nonsense: A Compiled Compendium of Repetitive Redundancies," such as personal friend, weave in and out, disappear from view, monetary fine, royal prince, raining outside, and falling down.

I am sure we've had a thread of redundancies before, but how about another? What are some of yours?

Ahem! I hate it when I don't get answers, so I will ask a different question!

Look at those redundancies above. I wondered if, in fact, they all are repetitive. Can't, for example, you have a personal friend and a work friend? I assume when he is talking about prince, he is referring only to royalty...because surely "prince" can be used without meaning royalty. Can someone be fined for something other than money? I am not sure.

I think you could be charged a fine of goods or services.

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
Richard Kallan has a new book out entitled, "Armed Gunmen, True Facts, and Other Ridiculous Nonsense: A Compiled Compendium of Repetitive Redundancies," such as personal friend, weave in and out, disappear from view, monetary fine, royal prince, raining outside, and falling down.

I think some of these may appear on the surface to be redundancies, but really aren't. A friend may be a close personal friend or merely an acquaintance. It may be a best friend or a fair-weather friend. You can weave in and out of traffic or back and forth (to and fro) in your own lane. A drunk may weave down the street or on the sidewalk, while you may weave through a crowd. Can you weave up and down, say, in an airplane? Something can disappear from view or disappear from your memory. Fines in this country are, as far as I know, always monetary. The neighbor next door may be a real prince or a royal pain. When it rains, it usually rains outside, unless you have a leaky roof or you left a window open. There was a song talking about it "raining in my heart." You generally fall down, physically, but metaphorically you might fall in love or fall for a line. You can fall head over heels or ass over teakettle. Johnny Cash fell in to a burning ring of fire.

Yes, some of these are redundant, but I have no serious objections to them.

James J. Kilpatrick talks about this book and labels many of these "benign redundancies."

Tinman

quote:

ass over teakettle

I've never heard of that. I believe 'arse over tip' is the equivalent over here.

I agree with what Tinman says about these apparent redundancies- in fact, I was thinking up similar response until I realised you'd got there first, Tinman! I do think it's funny to hear them and think 'Oh yeah, why DO we say that?', but after some thought it's not hard to come up with exceptions to most of them. I like the name 'benign redundancies', as they don't ruffle my feathers all that much.

OK, 'true facts' is a bit silly .


(and can I think of any of my own to add? None at all, dammit! )

Bob didn't cross-post after all, so I'll do it for him.

What about 'you yourself' or 'I myself'? I said in the American/Brit/Aussie thread in which Bob originally mentioned it that: "I don't know. On the one hand it is redundant, on the other it emphasises the original pronoun, and can work to point it out a little more strongly than just 'you' (or 'I' or whatever)".

What do the rest of you think?

quote:

you yourself

Does not upset me at all. "You yourself said that." Sort of you said it, and cannot blame it on the machinations of Others. So, maybe, "you yourself" is some kind of reflexive construction, as in "You washed yourself". No, probably not.

here's some I thought of:

singularly unique
enter in
follow around
examine closely
wander aimlessly

quote:

"You washed yourself"

I'd rather wash someone else, given the right circumstances.

quote:

'you yourself' or 'I myself'

I can't say that I use those phrases, but I would agree that they tend to add a little emphasis to the "you" or the "I." I'll have to look at the other thread.

You may be right, Tinman, that we are just fined money in the U.S. If someone goes to court, for example, he/she may have "community service" to perform, but it isn't called the "fine."

We've talked about myself before. (We also talked about refer back in that discussion.) The AHD and M-W have usage notes about it, and Jack Lynch of Rutgers University adds his two cents. He also talks about Between you and I.

It is widely used in place of me and it grates on my nerves. The OED Online says myself used as an object of the verb in place of me is "now arch. and Irish English," and that myself used for I as the simple subject of a sentence is "chiefly arch. and Irish English."

This next part I really hate to post. It says myself is used as "part of a compound subject or predicate, and after than or as. Also (chiefly Irish English) as simple predicate," and gives what I consider some completely horrible examples, such as "One of our party and myself started on an expedition" (1866), and "Myself and Phil Chard are now running the coaching" (1996). I would change those to "One of our party and I ..." and "Phil Chard and I ... ."

Tinman

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tinman,

Yes, I do agree with your examples, Tinman. Yet, what do you think of "I hurt myself"? I hear that fairly frequently, and it means the person got hurt, not that he purposely injured himself (as with a knife, for example). While I have never really thought about it before, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if it is grammatically accurate.

Who ya gonna believe, me or some strange dictionary?

Phil Chad and myself are running the coaching.

A compound subject, in my book, should be able to have each portion correct separately. You wouldn't think it right to say "Myself is doing the coaching..."

I too would use the -self in a subject not as a compound but as an intensifier: "You may do as you like, but I myself wouldn't be caught dead using that sentence structure."

Speaking strictly for myself, of course.

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
"I hurt myself"

Try to be more careful next time!

That's perfectly good construction. I don't know of anybody who would argue for "I hurt me." Likewise you would say "She hurt herself," rather than "She hurt her." But you wouldn't say "I hurt herself." You would say "I hurt her." I can't explain the reasons why; I just know it's so. The AHD and M-W sites I posted above may explain it. M-W posted "didn't feel myself yesterday," and AHD "I'm feeling myself again" and "In office myself, I helped her get a job" as perfectly acceptable grammer. Actually, that last sentence doesn't sound quite right to me, but not because of the use of myself.

Tinman

You need to stop feeling yourself. People are starting to point.

I Touch Myself
I love myself
I want you to love me
When I'm feelin' down
I want you above me
I search myself
I want you to find me
I forget myself
I want you to remind me

Chorus:
I don't want anybody else
When I think about you
I touch myself
I don't want anybody else
Oh no, oh no, oh no

You're the one who makes me happy honey
You're the sun who makes me shine
When you're around I'm always laughing
I want to make you mine

I close my eyes
And see you before me
Think I would die
If you were to ignore me
A fool could see
Just how much I adore you
I get down on my knees
I'd do anything for you

Chorus

I love myself
I want you to love me
When I'm feelin' down
I want you above me
I search myself
I want you to find me
I forget myself
I want you to remind me

Chorus

I want you
I don't want anybody else
And when I think about you
I touch myself
Ooh, oooh, oooooh, aaaaaah

Chorus

From the topic beer, Caterwauller said

quote:

Last night I had a yummy Guinness

When you've had a bad Guinness, you certainly know about it!

I guess I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer because I am clueless about the Guinness discussion here.

In Bierma's column he makes fun of the BBC News Styleguide for using a "seemingly redundant phrase": "unpopular with many people." I don't agree. After all, something could be "unpopular with a few people" or "several people" or "everyone." Do you see it as a redundancy?

Kalleh, for a beer with a slogan like "My Goodness my Guinness", one doesn't really need to preference it by "yummy", since Guinness is always good. Obviously Arnie has had bad experiences, so to him it is completely different.