Here are the most common pleonasms you need to avoid using

A couple of columns ago we discussed “unnecessary” words, taking a swipe at legalese in particular for piling word upon phrase to say the simplest things. There’s a particular term for the use of superfluous words: pleonasm, a term derived from a Greek word that means “excess”. A pleonasm uses two or more words, of which one is redundant, to express an idea. The classic example of a two-word pleonasm is “burning fire” (after all, a fire, by definitions, burns) and that of a whole pleonastic phrase is “I saw it with my own eyes”. If you saw it you had to have used your own eyes, right? The same holds true for “heard with my own ears” and “touched with my own hands” — you can’t touch with someone else’s hands or hear with someone else’s ears!

Whereas an oxymoron (like “open secret” or “act naturally”) combines two contradictory terms, a pleonasm uses synonymous ones, like “armed gunman” (if he’s a gunman, he’s armed) or “tuna fish“ (if it’s tuna, it’s a fish). A pleonasm isn’t the same as a tautology, which is a repetition of the same idea in different words. A pleonasm uses redundant, superfluous words you don’t really need — which is what I just did in this sentence to make my point!

What are the most common pleonasms you need to be conscious of and avoid? “Advance planning” and “advance warning” are widespread: if you plan or warn, you always do so in advance, so why add the word? The same with “mix together”, once you mix something it obviously gets the elements together; you can’t mix something apart! Similarly, “close proximity”, “empty hole”, “exact replica”, and “young child” — the noun contains the meaning that the adjective seeks to add, so why not drop the adjective? My fellow Indians are often guilty of saying they will “return back” — an Indianism and a pleonasm all in one!

One of the best examples of a sentence combining three or four pleonasms in one is: “It was an unexpected surprise when a pair of baby twins was born at 12 midnight”. A surprise, after all, can hardly be expected; twins always come in pairs; midnight can only come at 12 — so none of those extra words were necessary. And the fourth pleonasm? Can anyone be born who is not a baby? All four pleonasms could have been avoided by simply saying “They were surprised when twins were born at midnight.”