The list of pleonasms which were here previously are now located at this Pleonasms or Tautological Redundancies site.
Pleonasms or Tautological Redundancies
Avoid redundancies by not using unnecessary repetitions and
superfluous words.
Pleonasms are the opposites (antonyms) of oxymora. A
pleonasm consists of two concepts (usually two words) that are
redundant. What does “redundant” mean? Well, how about
“more than enough; overabundant; excess; and superfluous”?
Still having a problem understanding what pleonasm means? Some
pleonastic expressions are also known as tautologies. Tautology means,
“needless repetition of an idea in a different word, phrase, or
sentence; redundancy; pleonasm.” What about pleonasm? It means,
“the use of more words than are necessary for the expression of
an idea; redundancy.” So it is that we go around in circles:
pleonasm means tautology, which means redundancy, which means pleonasm,
which means tautology, ad infinitum.
Tautologous expressions are often used in legal documents for
clarification of meaning; such as, “will and testament” and
“breaking and entering”. This practice may have been a
result of expressing English documents with a mixture of Anglo-Saxon
and French or Latin terms. When early writers weren’t sure if
both designations had the same meaning or that others might not have a
clear understanding of the French or Latin, they apparently included
terms from both the Anglo-Saxon and the “foreign” words
side by side, just to be sure others understood what was meant; this is
according to David Crystal in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of
Language.
Tap (click) here to see the lists of
oxymora.