Talk:Pleonasm/Archive 1

message: You ought to check out your examples. Some of them are wrong, from "simplifying" something that actually has a level of meaning that isn't in the simpler version. Yes, when that happens the more complex version doesn't make itself clear and should be clarified - but the simpler variant is not the same, so the example is wrong. PML.
I concur. For many of these examples, the simplified version is indeed simpler, but not necessarily synonymous. Pleonasm should refer to words that can be removed to retain exactly the same sense. 
:No, I disagree. Not the same sense, the same necessary sense. There is very rarely (if ever) an important difference of meaning between "We're going to ask local people about heavy traffic" and "We intend to hold a consultation exercise with members of the local community in terms of issues around traffic congestion."
::But there might be a significant difference in meaning, and such a sentence does not constitute an unambiguous pleonasm. 
If removing a word changes the focus or sense of a phrase at all, it's not really a pleonasm. Also, pleonasm usually refers to formations that are redundant yet grammatical. Ungrammatical insertion of words is just an error. I suggest putting in some uncontroversial examples from a variety of languages.
For example:
* In the Spanish sentence "Yo tengo el dinero" ("I have the money"), the word 'yo' is pleonastic. Removing it does not change the meaning of the sentence in any way. (If 'yo' is emphasized, it changes the sense of the sentence to focus on 'I'). 
* In the French sentence "Je ne parle pas français" ("I don't speak French") the word "ne" is pleonastic: removing it doesn't change the meaning of the sentence in any way.
:No, I'd say it's redundant, not pleonastic, but redundancy is a natural (and essential) part of language. Pleonasm isn't.
::I think we are defining pleonasm as a linguistic form of redundancy. In these cases, both the form with and without the 'extra' word are grammatically acceptable in the language. The 'yo' and 'ne' are pleonasms because they don't do anything to affect the meaning. The meaning of both sentences is identical in every way. My linguistics professors always called words like that 'pleonastic'. How exactly are they not pleonasms?
On the other hand, many of the examples in the article are problematic:
* "I additionally also think that..." is not grammatical
:No, it is grammatical. Grammar isn't generally concerned with meaning of words: that's semantics.
::I would have to disagree. It is a rule of grammar that restricts what kinds of adverbs can occur adjacently. Consider "I hopefully very think that...". Is that also grammatical? Are you saying that this kind of 'semantic rule' is not part of the grammar of English?
* "the sound of the loud music" and "the loud music" are not the same.
* "drown out" and "drown" are not the same.
* "Burglarization" and "burglary" are both one word, one is just longer than the other.
* "in terms of" is generally used to relate one idea to another by analogy: "This new theory explains economic growth in terms of evolutionary biology"
:Yes, but that doesn't mean it can't be pleonastic in other contexts.
::I think, however, that an encyclopedia entry on pleonasm should contain only examples that are unambiguously pleonastic
In the example sentence, the usage is grammatical but doesn't make sense. Since pleonasm refers to extra words with the same sense, it can't really apply to constructions that lack sense.
* "democratic process" and "democracy" are not the same. In the example, "democracy" is a better choice, but it's not pleonasm.
* "Members of the X community" is not the same as "Xs". One might argue it is the same as "some Xs" though.
* "issues around traffic congestion" and "traffic congestion" are not the same.
The debatable examples:
* "voting process" might be distinct from "voting exercise" or "voting activity".
* I agree "hold a consultation exercise with" is needlessly wordy, but is it really synonymous with "consult" (as a verb)?
* Is "a ... testing regime" really the same as "... tests"?
* The noun "postmortem" can be defined as "postmortem examination" and is thus pleonastic, but the word examination might be important to distinguish from something else that occurred after the death.
* "rescue operation" might refer to logistics behind a "rescue" but not the rescue itself.
* a "significant landmark" might be to distinguish from an "insignificant landmark".
The things that truly are pleonasm:
* "head up" and "head" are synonymous (as verbs), so the 'up' is pleonastic.
** Can you give a sentence example?  "We head up the hill" and "We head the hill" don't mean the same thing.  Is there another way this is used as a verb? - Omegatron 20:38, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)
:::I think I raised this later on this page. I decided that it was probably a use like "head up a committee." In my view, that's likely an idiom, but wouldn't be a redundancy.--NathanHawking 07:01, 2004 Oct 13 (UTC)
* "police force" and "police" are synonymous (as nouns), so the 'force' is pleonastic.
--Nohat 18:23 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)
:I don't think it's a question of whether a long and short sentence or phrase are exactly synonymous under close analysis but whether the intended sense is the same. The longer examples I gave are not used by people who want to inform and be precise, they're used by people who want to impress and obfuscate (politicians etc). Jacquerie27 09:55 22 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I also think that several of the long examples are just plain wrong. And I come from a culture where pleonasms are considered to be very bad. Loisel 03:35 3 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Here's an example offender:
* The council will hold a consultation exercise with members of the local community into issues around traffic congestion.
* The council will consult local people about traffic congestion. (Or simply: The council will ask local people about heavy traffic.) 
The first phrase does not need "exercise" and "local" and "into issues around traffic congestion" is poor style. It is possible that "exercise" is used to suggest that the consultation won't be "real" and will only be used to train someone (the councilors maybe?) but it is probably a pleonasm. However, the alternatives fail to convey the following information:
* The council will actually have sort sort of formal reunion where the local community will be able to come. Indeed, the words "hold a consultation ... with members of the local community" sounds a lot more like there's going to be a town hall meeting than "consult local people."
* The longer phrase seems to suggest that issues connected to traffic congestion, and not only the traffic problem, will be discussed.
In addition, the proposed alternatives do not maintain the same level of english, which can only serve to confuse pleonasms with good english, which is exactly what we're trying to avoid. "Consulting local people" is not the same as "consulting members of the community." In one instance, they're just "guys", while in the other they are participating citizens or something.
I suggest the contentious ones be removed.
Loisel 03:45 3 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Agreed. As I've taken an active part in the debate, I'll leave the removal to someone else. Merriam-Webster defines pleonasm as "the use of more words than those necessary to denote mere sense (as in the man he said) : REDUNDANCY" Nohat 04:21 3 Jul 2003 (UTC)
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First casualties:
* The voting process is essential in terms of the democratic process.
** Voting is essential in democracy.
* The council will hold a consultation exercise with members of the local community into issues around traffic congestion.
** The council will consult local people about traffic congestion. (Or simply: The council will ask local people about heavy traffic.)
* Members of the gay and lesbian community have serious issues around the interpretation of the events surrounding 9/11 by members of the fundamentalist Christian community.
** Gays and lesbians do not like what some fundamentalist Christians say about 9/11.
* The governor will head up the investigation process.
** The governor will head the investigation.
* Ministers have created a rigorous new testing regime for the police force. 
** Ministers have created rigorous new tests for the police.
* Post mortem examination
** Post mortem
** Autopsy [[[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk)]] 22:09, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)]
* Rescue operation
** Rescue
* Significant landmark/milestone
** Landmark/Milestone
Loisel 23:28 3 Jul 2003 (UTC)
:These all seem like examples of logorrhea not redundancy. - Omegatron 21:06, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)
:::Loisel's examples are several months old. I'm not sure they're even in the article. But there are elements of redundancy within many of them. Some logorrhea is indeed redundancy. 
:::OFTEN: rescue entails an operation; police entails a force; post mortem implies an examination; voting entails a process. The first term subsumes the second, one of the definitions of pleonasm.--NathanHawking 07:01, 2004 Oct 13 (UTC)
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In informal spoken French, the negator ne is often optional, while pas is obligatory:
#Je parle français.  I speak French.
#Je ne parle pas français.  I do not speak French.
#Je parle pas français.  I do not speak French.
# Je ne parle français.  (not grammatically correct)
Here, (2), (3), and (4) show that the word pas is required to negate the meaning of the first sentence, whereas ne is optional.
Actually, "ne" can often be used alone to express a negative meaning; this is a rather formal register, however. Il ne cesse de m'importuner, for example. The above uses a rather unusual meaning of "grammatically correct," and it's difficult to see what relation it has with the rest of the point anyway. - Montréalais
:Are you sure that "ne" is optional?  Omitting the "do" in English is not so much optional, as it subtly changes the meaning, with variants:
I do not speak French.
I speak no French.
I speak not French.
I speak French not.
lysdexia 15:38, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Initial Discussion 

message: The contributor states: "Dynamic range" is not really redundant; dynamic in this case meaning ever-changing). 
No, that's simply not the case. 
When some speak of the dynamic range of a microphone, they're usually referring to a fixed figure, the ratio of the maximum relatively undistorted sound pressure level to the noise level, usually expressed in dB, something like 105 dB, for example. In this case (and in virtually every other common technical use of dynamic range) dynamic range is a redundant noun phrase (where dynamic is not an adjective). Here, it refers to the relatively undistorted sound level range. Range already implies the ability to change. Dynamic adds nothing. --NathanHawking 21:24, 2004 Oct 12 (UTC)
:I don't think that's the case.  Dynamic in this example means relating to strength or relating to intensity (from the Greek dyname, and similar to dynamic markings in music), so the dynamic range is the range of intensities (measured in dB) that the microphone can handle. --Delirium 09:22, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Dynamic range" as redundant