Almost every day I hear random redundancies come out of
people’s mouths. I’m quite sure I use them too, so I’m not totally criticizing here.
But they catch my ear.
One of them is the ubiquitous “3 a.m. in the morning.” (This
one I do not use.) When I hear it, I
always mutter, “What, as opposed to 3 a.m. in the evening?” A.M. indicates morning, so there is no
need to add further description of the time of day. Either 3 a.m. or 3 in the morning
will suffice.
I’ve been hearing a lot of “small little” lately. I keep
hearing a local lawyer commercial that mentions the “small little check” you’ll
get from the insurance company if you don’t use the lawyer’s services. I
believe the intent here is emphasis: The check is smaller than small. But,
really, small and little mean the same thing, don’t they? Why not emphasize with
a word like tiny or a phrase like awfully small”? You could even use the
oxymoronic enormously small.
One phrase I’ve railed against for a long time is “and also.”
Technically, these words are two different parts of speech and there is no redundancy
here. And is a conjunction and also is an adverb. And indicates a connection or addition. Also means besides or likewise. If you look up also on the Merriam-Webster online
dictionary, the first example of the use of also includes and: “She’s
a talented singer and also a fine actress.”
Again, emphasis.
But why use both? Why not: “She’s a talented singer and a
fine actress.” Also just seems like
an unnecessary addition.
Do these phrases sound as odd and wrong to you as they do to
me? What phrases make you cringe?
