Talk:Tautology

message: I deleted a recent addition from the article, for several reasons.  Here is the text in case anyone disagrees.
:Gun advocates such as NRA commonly used the slogan "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns". This is no doubt true by its words, but the user may argue that it's not exactly redundant, for his usage is actually stating "Once guns are outlawed, those who commonly commit crime (bad guys) today will still hold the existing guns and use them against those (good guys) who intend to protect themselves" in other words "Bad guys remain bad, good guys become victims for abiding the law".
For one thing, it's more of a logical tautology, but it was placed in the linguistic examples section (although that's only a reason to move it).  More importantly, I worry that might be interpreted by readers as an attempt to push a certain POV regarding the issue of gun laws.  The paragraph's point is more concerned with the issue of gun control than with the semantics of the slogan, and therefore I think it would be more appropriate for an article on gun control/laws/etc. than for this article.
Further, I worry that we're getting carried away with examples.  It seems to me that the number of examples already present in the article is more than sufficient.  A few representative cases should be fine; if the reader is interested, there are plenty more at List of redundant expressions, which is in this article's "See also" section. —Triskaideka 17:01, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Is the redundant expressions page the ideal place to catalog tautologies?  I wanted to post the example "All copyrights are the property of their respective owners," but it seems to me more relevant to this topic than to redundancies. A separate section or page that collects tautology examples would be word-nerd fun and perhaps of some value in refining one's sense of what is and isn't a tautology. --Stanky 12:49, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How about we make a page for tautologies? --ʀ6ʍɑʏ89 21:17, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Linguistic examples 

message: Can somebody tell me what is the difference? It would be worth to make this difference clear in the article as well.
--Seingalt 12:22, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tautology and analytic statement 

message: ...that example of subtle tautology with the senators. Please could someone explain, and perhaps consider reworking that part of the article for thickies like me! [UserID:Promsan|Promsan]144.178.184.77 09:46, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  I don't understand... 

message: I really think it's a bit incongruous to have the logical concept discussed on the same page as these endless remarks about PIN numbers and so on; the two senses of the word have little to do with each other. How about two pages, tautology (logic) and tautology (linguistics), with tautology turned into a dab page? (I would be against making the linguistic meaning primary; the logical meaning is taught to ninth graders in geometry class, and is probably the first meaning a lot of people encounter.) --Trovatore 17:14, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Separate out logical tautology

message: This is how the rhetorical form is currently defined:
Tautology (rhetoric), use of redundant language that adds no information
Isn't the phrase "redundant language that adds no information" redunant?  After all, if the language added further information, it would not be redundant.
Perhaps a change to either:
Tautology (rhetoric), use of redundant language
or
Tautology (rhetoric), use of redundant language (language that adds no information)
would be better.
*Very ironic, C5ybr. I'm OK with it as it stands, but would have no problem with anyone changing it to your second example. BTW, you can sign your contibs with four "tilde"s (the "~" symbol).  Durty Willy 01:42, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Isn't the definition of the rhetorical form redundant? 

message: I've heard the word "tautology" used in physics to describe a method of predicting or simulating a complex system without accurately taking into account the actual causes of change within the system. For example, the method may accurately predict or chart behaviour within a system, but for all the wrong reasons (the math works, but the basis for its validity is unknown or mistaken. For example, non-heliocentric models of the movements of the solar system). I've seen the word used in SciAm in regards to "Grey Matter" and "Dark Matter" theories with promising (but currently unprovable) data, and i.r.t. other statistically accurate yet disputed theories. It seems to be in use within the physics and mathematics crowd, but I don't have any background to start a new article (Tautology (physics) or Tautology (mathematics)), and it's been a bitch finding reference on Google. I could be misinterpreting the word, but I'd be glad to make a new article if anyone can corroborate my understanding of it in this context. Otherwise, I'll "be bold" and blindly make a new stub ;)  Durty Willy 02:08, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: In Physics

message: "Tautology (example), an example of tautology". ☭мдснєтє тдлкЅТЦФФ 21:40, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  IMHO it is within the degree of humour that an encyclopedia can carry. I would prefer something a bit less abstract, but in general I like the idea. Pitty it is gone. --Sascha.leib (talk) 09:08, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

text: * I agree with Sascha.leib.  The portal portal is an example of a page obviously meant to be humorous and it doesn't really contribute anything.  It just seems inconsistent to remove this. Meh.  What's done's done.  --Steven Weston (talk) 14:45, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The above page is now at Wikipedia:Portal:Portal; maybe that namespace would be a suitable place for the version of this page being discussed. GreenReaper (talk) 22:15, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is this a joke ? 

message: I watned to look up what is tautology, but there's 4 pages and that seems like a tad much  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.250.1.179 (talk) 01:22, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  woah, could someone merge some of these? 

message: In the explanation of tautonym, "both identical" is a pleonasm. I have corrected & clarified. Steve8394 (talk) 21:06, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tautonym