Two Unnecessary Words

Well, technically they’re unnecessary (aka redundant), but maybe not, given the context. We can use extra words for emphasis even though the words aren’t actually necessary.

I think “at this time” is also unnecessary…

Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed

But it’s from The Washington Post, a place where I expect better writing. The quote is lengthy, so I made the solecisms bold.

Carrie Dennett writes about why the Traffic Light Diet, a system of assigning the colors red, yellow and green to foods, is too simplistic, doesn’t have much impact, and can lead to nutritional deficiencies (some “red” foods have essential vitamins and minerals) and obsessive eating behaviors. Cara Rosenbloom writes about why telling people how long they will have to walk or run to work off the calories from, say, a chocolate bar, is too simplistic, can lead to nutritional deficiencies and can encourage obsessive behavior.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/traffic-light-diets-label-foods-red-yellow-and-green-thats-too-black-and-white/2020/01/19/7d0c4030-3878-11ea-9541-9107303481a4_story.html

Simplistic already means “oversimplified.” Good writing has no such thing as “properly oversimplified” to be able to have too much of it. Use the word by itself!

Harrumpf.

If you’re a regular reader of this site, you know I preach against redundancy, aka unnecessary repetition. Such as “do it over again.” (Either “over” or “again,” but not both.) We call this being concise.

Well, maybe I just ran into a case where the redundancy is necessary!

After all, just “drink” all by itself implies drinking booze, right?

Good expository writing is concise—all the necessary words, but no more. Redundancy is extra words that you don’t need. Those extra words say what you already said.

Here are a couple sentences from a NASA press release. I’m a bit ashamed to reveal the source because the press release contains a bunch of bad writing (including carelessness: “…including released of water vapor.”)

These two sentences each contain a redundancy:

The ongoing examination of Bennu – and its sample that will eventually be returned to Earth – could potentially shed light on why this intriguing phenomenon is occurring.

Many of the ejected particles are small enough to be collected by the spacecraft’s sampling mechanism, meaning that the returned sample may possibly contain some material that was ejected and returned to Bennu’s surface.

Here’s the rule, dating back at least as far as Joel Chandler Harris:

If you can leave a word out, leave it out.

PS—I ran into a comic that makes the point, too:

Writing concisely saves your reader time and effort (and irritation), because when you don’t repeat yourself, your reader doesn’t have to read the same thing twice. I’ve written about redundancy before. Use the search box in the upper right corner to find more on this subject.

He could have said:

• Get the sign painter back!
• Get the sign painter here!
• Get the sign painter again!

That sentence would be correct if the sign painter had already been there more than once, though.

When you write, don’t repeat yourself!

This post first appeared on The Writing Rag.