Copied from a friend on Facebook

Thanks, Wayne.

Vocabulary Tip: Unsolved mysteries are just mysteries.

My comment:

We call this error a solecism, a pleonasm, or a redundancy. If you use either of those first two words with redundancy, it’s an example of itself!

Details:

• Solecism: any mistake in grammar
• Pleonasm: extra word
• Redundancy: saying the same thing twice unnecessarily

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Sigh. Another hobbyhorse of mine. Redundancy is when you say (or write) the same thing twice, unnecessarily repeating yourself. You don’t need both “first” and “original.”

I got it from a friend-of-a-friend’s Facebook post.

English is rather inconsistent when it comes to idioms. Last two panels.

I admit, this is an old joke. The correct answer, though, is to be consistent by saying just “tuna sandwich.”

Redundancy is when you say the same thing twice. It’s a sub-type of the error we call a pleonasm, unnecessary words.

You can see the repetition, right?

“Betcha” is a contraction of “I bet you.” So you have “you” twice, right???

Good writing is concise. That means you got rid of extra words but didn’t get rid of too many words. (Getting rid of too many words is being terse.) Okay, we have a couple synonyms here that involve not being concise. Definitions after the comics.

• Redundancy—needless repetition; “do it over again.”
• Pleonasm—unnecessary words; “on a daily basis” instead of “daily.”
• Tautology—the same thing twice; “he was prepared and ready.”

I’ll let you decide which of these are in the comics.