For no very good reason, I began thinking about redundancies. I was going to come up with a list of my own, but then I decided to find a list on the internet because if I'm inveighing against repetition, why duplicate effort, right? I then shortened the list and wrote a commentary by some of them.
absolutely essential, absolutely necessary (Are these really redundancies? Isn't there a difference between something that's merely necessary and absolutely necessary? "Water is necessary for the maintainance of life." "It's absolutely necessary I find a bathroom in the next three minutes." See what I mean?)
ACT test (There should be a special category for our tendency to add a word already included in an acronymn. ATM Machine, KFC Chicken, PIN number)
advance warning (add to this "potential threat," pre-planning, advance planning.)
free gift, full satisfaction, always and forever (Usually used to advertising, avowals of love, and other lies more convincing.)
awful bad (The people who think this is a redundancy don't understand the idiomatic use of "awful." Awful doesn't mean bad; it doesn't even mean "awe-inspiring" which is its original definition. It just means "a lot" or "extreme." Somewhere there's a movie line where a young girl praises an opera star's caterwauling, "Don't you think she's awful wonderful?" The mother responds, "I think she's wonderful awful.")
bunny rabbit (Another one I think is unfairly on the list. A bunny rabbit is cute and fluffy and is a different critter than the one that's been getting into your garden, and VERY different from what you had last night for dinner.)
cash money (Again, a very specific concept mistaken as a plain redundancy. There is money in the conceptual sense - money you have in the bank, money you are owed, money you can borrow, money you will be paid at the end of the week. Cash money is actual wrinkled bills you have in a jar under your arm or in your back pocket, warmed from contact with your hip and smelling of leather from your wallet.)
cease and desist (Dang it, another non-redundancy. And I'm not defending this just because it's a legal term. Cease means you stop doing something. Desist means you don't start doing it again.)
close proximity, combined together
complete monopoly (We're missing the top hat and the deed to Park Place, so we have an incomplete Monopoly. Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!)
component parts
continuing on
Each and every (I really hate this one)
end result
falling down (Add to this, standing up, sitting down, lying down, climbing up)
I thought to myself (Add to this, asked a question.)
live audience (This has a special meaning for Zombie movies)
my personal opinion
past experience, previous history
unique individual
bare naked (I can't explain it, but bare naked is nakeder than just naked. I think the skin is shinier.)
brief moment
first priority
it's raining outside
killed dead (Again, a necessary distinction in my personal opinion. See "bare naked.")
postponed until later
Rio Grande River
surrounded on all sides
