Is this article right about redundant phrases that should be avoided?

It makes sense in the work place, especially when working with clients or business partners. I have to deal with that kind of stuff working in restaurants. ( choice of words and phrases rather than avoiding redundancy, but still, along the same lines)
But otherwise, ain’t nobody gonna tell me how to fuckin speak.

except Gail

I love lists like these, because they make people pause and think about the meaning of things they say. I didn’t read every line, but yes, I usually leave out redundant words and phrases when I speak and write. I was taught this by one of my high school English teachers.

I would add that this is one of the things that irritates me most about Sarah Palin – she tends to use two or three words to indicate a single “and” within each sentence. “And also… too”. So annoying!

It’s a pretty good list, and no one will go far wrong in adhering closely to it.

They left off one of my favorite phrases to hate, though: “as per”.

I hope I don’t have to point out the joke here myself.

I believe in this article that several of the words, though absolutely clear and understandable unto themselves, are made more understandable in context with the added word. However, this thought, is merely my opinion, and surely will not be embraced by everyone totally. ;-)

That list has the ring of true facts to me.

Here is someone who echoes what I said, and gives a nice explanation.

@gailcalled

Isn’t the phrase “true facts” in itself redundant?
Aren’t facts, by definition, true?

Is there such a thing as false facts?

Jk :D

The list is all well and good, but I think we can go overboard policing everything for redundancy, don’t you think? Where does it end?

I’d just be happy to see attention being paid to more egregious lapses like referring to “loosing weight” and similar which just jangles the senses when encountered. Yuck.

Yo, dudette. My marevlous 9th grade English teacher’s favorite barbarism was “true facts.”

And may I remind many of you to curb the need to hit the apostrophe when you really mean “its” as a possessive. Repeat after me, ”It’s will always mean it is.”

Is pointing out irony an example of redundant speech?

I liked your follow-up, @LostInParadise, especially because I had somewhat similar reactions. Some idioms don’t define as the individual words in the phrase might. The example that I thought of instead of “write down” was “write up”, as in “I’m going to write you up for that.” Probably no one would question that as a redundancy, but how is it much different, usage-wise, from “write this down”?

I also took some exception to “added bonus”. We can be induced by a sales offer that has “a bonus of 15% extra product for the same money”, for example, and I see absolutely nothing wrong with “an added bonus” that the product has been improved from an older formulation. (Well, except for the fact that the “added bonus” is probably a lie, because the 15% reduction in price more than likely indicates that the product has been cheapened, but that’s an analysis for another day.)

Can we also ban “basically” as a basically meaningless word used to jump-start, unnecessarily, a sentence or part of a sentence?

Only if we can also ban the meaningless “Moreover…”, which basically says “I’m about to say something.”

“Moreover” means “I’m about to say something else!”

That is no less useless!

I think we should do away with “on the advice of my attorney” in business communication and Congressional hearings, since it seems that everything said in those places is only after thorough legal vetting anyway.

“on the advice of my attorney” might be a way to explain to consituents why nothing is being said. “I would gladly tell you what I did, but my attorney advised against it.”

Redundancy in language is a feature, not a bug. @LostInParadise is right that it is used for emphasis. There is always noise, and redundancy helps to ensure that the message is not lost.