Redundancies: Does it bear repeating?

Do you have a hot water heater in your residence? We don’t.

We just have a water heater.

If the water is already hot, why heat it? "Hot water heater" is an example of redundancy, or pleonasm. Other examples include PIN number and ATM machine (PIN stands for Personal Identification Number and ATM stands for Automated Teller Machine).

John McIntyre has a list of some of the more obnoxious pleonasms found in journalism, including these:

Advance planning: Planning is, by definition, done in advance.

Close scrutiny: To scrutinize is to examine closely.

Consensus of opinion: A consensus is an opinion that a group of people have come to share.

Final results: The result is the outcome, the final thing. This tautology turns up in articles about elections, in which speaking of early returns and final returns would be more accurate.

Mass exodus:  The word exodus means the departure of a large group of people. Adding mass adds nothing.

Watch out for unneeded and extraneous repetition and redundancy. Question every word. Sometimes you do want to repeat yourself to emphasize something or because it just sounds good. (McIntyre points to William Faulkner’s line about "old verities and truths of the heart.") But don’t do it out of sloppiness.