"A merry heart doeth good like a medicine..." – Proverbs, 17:22

Redundancies and Excesses

Redundancy defined

An act or instance of needless repetition. The part of a message that can be eliminated without loss of essential information. Characterized by or containing an excess, specif: using more words than necessary.
 
Redundancies almost always contain a base word and a modifer. The base word is either followed by a redundant modifier (for example, "bond together") or preceded by it (for example, "audible gasp."

Adding the modifier comes from the user's lack of understanding of the base word or lack of confidence in the effectiveness of the base word.

The resulting condition is called "excess qualification." It occurs freqently in technical writing.

In general, redundancies really are redundancies. Contrast this with oxymorons on this site, which abound with editorial comment (for example, "honest politician").

Excess defined

Extra words that are intended to amplify or support the meaning, but actually don't do a thing. An expecially irritating subset of redundancy.  "Continue on" is the most widespread and possibly the worst of them.

Follow-on preposition defined

A follow-on preposition is a small word, usually a preposition, which follows a verb (for example, "beat up"). Sometimes there is a noun or pronoun in there (for example, "look you up").

The generated phrases are idioms, often having meanings that can't be derived from the "cojoined" meanings of the words.

They are part of the way we speak and write American English and are not excesses. They are common and useful, and serve several purposes.

1) They can tone or color the verb. There is a subtle difference between "beating Fred" and "beating up Fred.

2) They can produce a marked change in the meaning of the verb. Contrast "beating Fred" (winning at a game) with "beating up Fred" (being in a fistfight with Fred) and "beating down Fred" (harrassing or demoralizing Fred).

3) Our speech wouldn't sound right if we didn't use them. Incidentally, our unusual constructions are one of the big challenges to new speakers of English.

Redundancies

Added bonus
Advance warning
Arthroscopic knee surgery
ATM machine
Audible gasp
 
Bare naked
Basic fundamentals
Bond together
 
Close proximity
Closed fist
Coequal
Combined total
Common bond
Consensus of opinion
Convicted felon

End result
Exact same
Exactly right
Execution-style killing

Ferryboat
Finished product
First time ever
Focus in
Foreign imports
Free gift
Future plans
Future potential
 
Gather together
General public
 
Harbinger of things to come
Honest truth

Inner core
 
Jewish synagogue
Join together
Joint cooperation
 
Lag behind
Linger on
 
Manual dexterity
Money-back refund
 
New initiative
 
Occasional irregularity
Outer rim
 
Past experience
Personal belongings
Personal friend
PIN number
Pizza pie
Plan ahead
Police SWAT team
Potential hazard
Prior history
 
Revert back
 
Safe haven
SCSI Interface
Security guard
Seeing the sights
Serious crisis
Shrug one's shoulders
Small minority
Software programmer
Subject matter
Sum total
 
Temper tantrum
Time clock
Time period
Total abstinence
True fact
 
Unique individual
 
Very unique
 
Young children

Excesses

Continue on
Design out
Enter into
I myself
Test out

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