Cutting unneeded words: pleonasms
I’ve mentioned pleonasms, the habit of using more words than necessary to express an idea, before. Here are a few particularly egregious examples that make me want to pour oatmeal in my ears:
“The car is red in color.” I suppose next you’ll tell me it was “large in size,” or “sleek in shape?” If you say something is red, blue, puce, or cerulean, there’s no need to add “in color.” Nothing can be red in size or shape, unless the person describing it did a little too much LDS back in the sixties, so leave in color out.
“The audience was few in number.” Well, if you’re going to litter your speech with excess baggage like “few in number,” you shouldn’t be surprised by a sparse turnout. Just like red can only refer to color, few (and many) can only refer to something’s quantity.
Please, do everyone a favor and prune out verbal deadwood like this.
Roy Jacobsen
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Reader Comments (2)
I hope I haven't been doing it in my blog writing.
As always thanks for your posts.
Star Trek IV is one of my favorite movies.
After all, they did save the humpback whales.