2020-12-22
ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด R – Redundant & superfluous & prolix
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Dictionary.com
ออกเสียง Redundant = ‘ri-DUHN-duhnt’
ออกเสียง Redundancy = ‘ri-DUHN-duhn-duhn-see’’
ออกเสียง superfluous =’soo-PUR-floo-uhs’
ออกเสียง prolix = ‘proh-LIKS’ or ‘’PROH-liks’
Common Errors In English Usage Dictionary
Redundancies
There are many examples of redundanciesin these pages:
phrases which say twice what needs to be said only once,
like “past history."
Advertisers are particularly liable to redundancy in hyping their offers:
“as an added bonus” (as a bonus),
“preplan” (plan), and
“free gift” (but look out for the shipping charges!).
Two other common redundancies
which are clearly errors are “andplus” (plus) and “end result” (result).
But some other redundancies are
contained in phrases sanctioned by tradition:
“safe haven,” “hot water heater,” “new beginning,” and “tuna fish."
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
The Redundant 'Is' Isn't Redundant
That double 'is' is making speech smoother
Usage commentators have a thing about redundancies.
The language is full of them, and they tend to be easy to notice.
Some, like "join together" or "free gift" or "old adage,"
are so entrenched as idioms that they get overlooked
more frequently than those that scratch the eardrums,
like "the reason is because."
The speech, however long, is what it is.
Because redundancies occur more commonly in speech
than in writing,
many of the more notable examples come from
those individuals who give a lot of speeches as part of their work.
In 2010, First Lady Michelle Obama addressed students at an elementary school in Louisiana (see the transcript here) and said the following:
So, I’m excited about it, and I think it’s something that’s very doable.
And the thing is, is that if your kids see you doing it
— your grandparents, uncles, teachers
— they’re going to be engaged.
So, let’s make this something that we’re all trying to do together.
Notice that Mrs. Obama used the repeated is.
She said "and the thing is," then paused, and said the is again.
The repetition of is in a sentence is a phenomenon
of which some linguists and usage commentators have taken notice.
Many regards the duplication as sloppy and unnecessary,
even though it happens more frequently than we might think.
At The Chronicle of Higher Education's Lingua Franca blog,
Ben Yagoda finds a handful of examples from radio transcripts:
But the truth is, is it’s no longer insurance if the government says they’re always going to bail you out. - Rep. Ron Paul, “Talk of the Nation"
The big difference is, is that right now farmers—and other employees, actually, too—are not required to verify the information. - Georgia Pabst, “Tell Me More.”
It is notable that, just like in Mrs. Obama's use,
each of these examples begins with an opening phrase
("the reality is," "the truthis")
that seems to place it in relation to something said before,
much like a conjunction.
The speaker regards such phrases as
having a function of "resetting" the sentence,
setting up for a contrasting point that follows.
And even though each of these phrases already
contains a functioning is,
the speaker nonetheless restates the is
as a way of putting the sentence back in motion.
There are other instances in which we find redundant is.
A common instance repeats the is after a phrase
like "what it is."
This usage also occurs mostly in spoken English:
What it is is the stepping stone to full retail legalization.
This is clearly a way for the marijuana industry to get a foothold in Vermont. - Kevin Sabet, quoted in U. S. News & World Report, 11 May 2017
You are right, this is not just a Trump phenomenon, it is clearly an international phenomenon. And I think that what it is is that the world is changing very, very rapidly. - Bernie Sanders, quoted in Boston Review (podcast), 4 Apr. 2017
You scoop your hands up and all it is is foam. - Josh Temple, quoted in CBC News, June 6, 2017
But it does see print use as well:
Mostly what it is is a catchphrase. An extremely loud, incredibly annoying, screamingly hilarious (for now) catchphrase. - Liam Mathews, TV Guide, 22 May 2017
Sometimes writers use a comma to separate the first is from the second:
It's not sexist, it's not unjust, it's not arbitrary. What it is, is nobody's business but United's. - Christine Negroni, Forbes, 27 Mar. 2017
These speakers and writers are
treating "what it is," "all it is," and similar phrases as nouns
that then require their own verb.
Look at what happens to Sen. Sanders's quote
if we eliminate the second is:
And I think that what it is that the world is changing very, very rapidly.
The sentence makes no sense when it is missing that second is.
So what's going on here?
It helps to take a look at what we normally expect from is
when we encounter it in a sentence.
Take these examples:
The sky is blue.
His brother is in high school.
My neighbor is a painter.
In these very typical uses,
the verb is functions as what is called a copula.
Related to the word couple and also called a linking verb,
a copula does the job of linking the subjectto its complement.
In the construction "what it is is thatthe world is changing,"
the second is
is fulfilling the function of the copulaof the sentence,
joining a noun phrase ("what it is") with another ("that the world is changing") .
So, what is that first is doing?
You could say that it's also functioning as a copula,
but its work is devoted to joining what and it.
With that first is committed to that job,
you need the second is to join the two parts of the sentence.
And so while the result is not formal English
and might make you do a mental double-take,
this example of repeated is actually makes grammatical sense.
Interestingly, the most famous use of repeated is
wasn't a redundancy at all.
When President Bill Clinton uttered the line,
"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is'is,"
to a grand jury in 1998, the repeated is struck many
as a slippery and inane use thatbordered on existential meaninglessness.
Rather, Clinton was simply using is in two different ways consecutively.
The first is simply refers to the word as a word,
a use that would be presented in italics if it had been presented in print
(as we do many times in our articles on this site).
That is essentially functions as a noun, the object of the preposition of.
The second is then follows in its normal function as a copula
joining the pronoun what with the noun meaning.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
'Free Gift' and Other Redundancies
Not all redundancies are created equal
Among the many lexical irritations people have with English
is the proliferation of redundantphrases:
free gift, final result, general consensus and the like.
What else, people say, is a gift if not free?
What is a result if not final?
A consensus, by definition, is general.
Welcome to the Department of Redundancy Department.
There is a fine line between useful redundancy and wordy redundancy, but much usage advice lumps them together.
There is merit in watching for redundancyin writing, of course,
but not all redundancy is unnecessaryor unwelcome.
Many languages—including English
—use redundancy to better and more clearly communicate a message:
In linguistics, [redundancy] refers to data which may be unnecessary
but which may help our understanding.
In a phrase such as those two dogs pluralityis marked three times.
Most speech contains redundancies and so
we often understand utterances even if we miss part of what was said. — Loreto Todd & Ian Hancock, International English Usage, 1986
This redundancy is something that helpsa speaker or a writer
get a message across even when the heareror reader
has missed part of it through inattentionor distraction.
This, then, is a useful redundancy.
There is, however, too much of a good thing.
Most redundancy in English involves repetition of some sort;
too much repetition, however,
and the speed at which an idea is transmitted
slows so much that the hearer walks away, the reader closes the book.
This brings us to a second meaning of redundancy
that Todd & Hancock mentions:
the use of too many words, what we might call"wordy redundancy."
There is a fine line between useful redundancy and wordy redundancy,
but much of the usage advice out there today does away with the line entirely and asks you to set fire to anyand all instances of redundancy:
REDUNDANCY.
Washington Irving wrote that
"redundancy of language is never foundwith deep reflection.
Verbiage may indicate observation, but not thinking.
He who thinks much says but littlein proportion to his thoughts."
Those words are worth reflecting on.
—Bryan Garner, Garner's Modern English Usage, 2016
But alas, even usage commentators who decry redundancy
violate their own thoughtful advice:
These five passages have not been picked out because they are especially bad.... I number them so that I can refer back to them.
—George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946
... are usually unnecessary padding in a sentence
—The Little, Brown Handbook 3rd ed., 1986
But the other view
—urging for a lowercase word following the colon
—is probably sounder:
the lowercase (as in this very sentence)
more closely ties the two clauses together.
—Bryan Garner, Garner's Modern English Usage, 2016
These redundancies fall into the "useful" category:
they are at the very least harmless,
and as some of them are fixed phrases (refer back, this very X),
we are willing to let them slide.
They are not actively harming anyone's understanding
of the material nor unduly burdening their attention.
The notion that redundant words should be eliminated from writing goes back to the 18th century.
Lindley Murray, in his 1795 English Grammar Adapted to the Different Classes of Learners, put it this way:
The first rule for promoting the strength of a sentence,
is, to prune it of all redundant words and members.
That's not to say that usage mavens have always felt this way:
... the Language is thinne, flagging, poore, starv'd; scarce covering the bone, and shewes like stones in a sack. Some men to avoid Redundancy, runne into that; and while they strive to have no ill blood, or Juyce, they loose their good — Ben Jonson, Timber: or, Discoveries, ca. 1637
And not all usage mavens today scorn redundancy
—provided it is the first, more useful, kind
and not the second, wordy kind.
But few mavens make a distinction.
The usual pronouncements
about refer back, final result,
collaborate together, continue on,
end result, past history, general consensus,
personal friend, off of, free gift,
and many, many more should
therefore be taken with a large grain of salt.
This is not to say that you must usethe redundant forms,
and you should be aware that
if you use free gift, the nitpickers will come out of the woodwork.
But you should feel free to judge for yourself
where they may be useful to communication
or may simply sound betterthan the shorter alternatives.
Remember that
the sound and rhythm of a sentence are important
in transmitting your message throughthe noise:
... inside a sentence the mere sound,
the mere number of syllables used, is sometimes
more important than the bare meaningof the words.
In writing, as in conversation,
an economical use of words is not always what we want.
—Bergan Evans & Cornelia Evans, A Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage, 1957
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language
su·per′flu·ous·ly adv.
su·per′flu·ous·ness n.
Synonyms:
superfluous, excess, extra, supernumerary, surplus
These adjectives mean
being more than is needed, desired, required, or appropriate:
delete superfluous words;
trying to lose excess weight;
found some extra change on the dresser;
supernumerary ornamentation;
distributed surplus food to the needy.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Did You Know?
If you think that superfluous must mean "extra 'fluous,'"
along the pattern of such words
as superabsorbent and superabundant,you're not far off.
Superfluous comes from the Latin adjective superfluus,
meaning literally "running over" or "overflowing."
Superfluus, in turn, derives from the combination of the prefix super-
(meaning "over" or "more")
and fluere, "to flow."
(Fluere also gave us fluid, fluent, and influence, among others.)
Since its first appearance in English in the 15th century,
superfluous has referred to an "overflowing" of some supply,
as of time or words, which hearkens back to its Latin origins.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Choose the Right Synonym for prolix
WORDY, VERBOSE, PROLIX, DIFFUSE
mean using more words than necessary to express thought.
WORDY may also imply loquaciousness or garrulity. a wordy speech
VERBOSE suggests a resulting dullness, obscurity, or lack of incisivenessor precision. the verbose position papers
PROLIX suggests unreasonable and tedious dwelling on details.
habitually transformed brief anecdotes into prolix sagas
DIFFUSE stresses lack of compactness and pointedness of style.
diffuse memoirs that are so many shaggy-dog stories
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
prolix
Did You Know?
There's no way to talk about prolix
without being redundant, verbose, and wordy.
That's because the word is a synonym of all of those long-winded terms.
Of those words, prolix is the one most likely to suggest
unreasonable and tedious dwelling on details.
It derives from prolixus, a Latin term
meaning "extended" or "copious."
Prolixus originated from a combination of the prefix pro-
(which means "forward")
and the past participle of liquēre,
a verb meaning "to be fluid."
True to that history, something that is prolixflows on and on.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Prolix adjective
: unduly prolonged or drawn out : too long
: marked by or using an excess of words
Prolix may have the crisp efficiency
of a good 21st century brand name,
but the word is long established and of a classical origin:
borrowed into English from Anglo-French and Latin
during the period known as Middle English,
its ultimate origin is Latin prolixus, meaning "extended."
That word is formed from pro-, meaning "forward,"
and liquēre, "to be fluid."
Dictionary of Problem Words and Expression
Redundant & superfluous & prolix
These words have a common meaning of
“too much,”
“more than is required or needed,”
“excessive”:
“The speaker’s response to the question was redundant
(or superfluous or prolix)."
Superfluous, derived from Latin terms
meaning “overflow,” is applicable to anything that is excessive,
but redundant and prolix are usually applied to speech and writing.
Specifically, redundant refers to unnecessary repetition
in expressing ideas, that is, wordiness:
“His speaking style is slow and boring, largely because it is so redundant.”
Prolix, from a Latin word meaning “long,”
applies to anything, especially speechand writing,
that is not necessarily repetitious
but is extended to great, tedious, and unnecessary length.
Words related to prolix
are protracted, verbose, and prolonged.
Approximate synonyms for redundant
are repetitive, tautological, and pleonastic.
Instead of superfluous, occasionally say or write
excessive, extra, extravagant, immoderate, and disproportionate.
