Sigh. Another Redundancy

My experience with small town newspapers tells me that they have a lot of weakness in their proofreading and copy editing departments. Redundancy is a pretty common error.

Redundancy is when you repeat yourself unnecessarily. Here’s today’s example:

In order to provide the building with some tender loving care, Magin enlisted the help of Jackson, Wyoming, business MD Roofing to help tackle some of the work that needed to be put into the house to restore it back to its original state.

“Restore it” is enough. you don’t need “back.”

While I’m being a curmudgeon, I’ll mention that the first two words (“In order”) aren’t necessary, and although the “it” after “restore” is grammatically correct, a noun (the house) is better than a pronoun.

Harrumpf.

Oh. A picture of the place:

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I’ve mentioned this topic before. Use the search box to find more.

Don’t use pronouns if you can help it because you might face antecedent confusion. Like this funny:

I picked this up on Memorial Day, hence the topic. But it’s a good example of not using the subjunctive when you’re supposed to.

The “if” makes the sentence contrary to reality, so you should use the subjunctive form of the verb, “were.” If only it were this easy.

Speaking as a pedant, using a pronoun (it) is frequently bad writing, even when using a pronoun is grammatical. What would you supply in place of the “it”?

Not even a lesson with it. Guess I’m being lazy.

Maybe I’ll do something worthwhile next time…

The rule is that a pronoun is supposed to refer to the noun closest before it (the antecedent), so the cartoonist has a point.

The closest noun is “tires”…