A Plumber after my own Heart

Redundancy is a bugbear in expository writing. Try not to do it.

Okay, a bugbear is an imaginary monster described by adults to frighten children. Let’s say I’m using the word to help you picture how normally bad it is to repeat concepts unnecessarily. (When you write a word and then define it, I suppose you could call that being redundant, but it’s not bad, especially if your reader needs the definition.)

Related to redundancy are words that are unnecessary even if they don’t exactly repeat something.

Is the plumber here correcting a redundancy or a merely unnecessary word?

I suppose if the problem was that he burned himself if he touched it, you could say it’s a hot water heater…

Okay! The next day Steve Kelley and Jeff Parker’s Dustin comic had a follow-up strip. It also is about unnecessary words. See if you can figure out the missing word. (Actually, I liked the ‘technicality’ quip better.)

(sigh) We grammar curmudgeons are so persecuted…