By Don Hauptman
On National Public Radio recently, I heard the words "news journalists." This is a quintessential redundancy. My hunch is that the commentator's intended meaning was "print journalists," in contrast to those who work in broadcasting or online.
Here are a few more redundant expressions I encountered recently in the pages of newspapers and online:
• "Does it put a negative stigma on a company? I think the answer is definitely."
A stigma, meaning a mark of disgrace, is always negative.
• "Snopes is one of a small handful of sites in the fact-checking business."
The word handful is a metaphor for something small.
• "In it [a video game,] you can choose to control either the resistance or the machines and your mission is to completely annihilate your enemy."
The word annihilation means total destruction, so the phrase "completely annihilate" might be regarded as... overkill.
• "Plenty of other examples abound."
The words plenty and abound both imply a large number.
• "One day, acting on a sudden impulse, I bought a new shirt."
An impulse is by definition sudden.
Redundant phrases such as these (and hundreds of others) should be avoided because they add more words than are necessary, because they're often cliches, and because they make the writer look lazy or illiterate. Expunge them from your writing with "meticulous care"!
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