Redundancies

Last week, I watched a video of George Carlin talking about redundant comments made on a recent airplane flight. He started with the safety talk: “in the event of an emergency situation…” His thinking was an emergency was already a situation, so you didn’t need to be told so. It was pretty funny and reminded me of an old boss I had once, who used to frequently use the expression “component part pieces.”
Aren’t components already parts of something? And aren’t the both pieces? It always made me roll my eyes. He would say things like, “Let’s be sure we include all the component part pieces.” My smart-aleck mind would think, “Why don’t we include the component pieces, but leave the parts out?” but I wisely didn’t say that out loud.
So I went down this rabbit hole in my head and started looking at the many ways we Americans use redundant speech. I didn’t have to look far, in fact, just going to my recipe book gave me quite a few unnecessary words. It started with a pie crust recipe – “combine these together.” “Combine” literally means “mix together.” Do we have to say them both? The next recipe was for cherry compote and told me to “reduce down” a mixture. “Reduce” literally means to make less, or “down.” Totally unneeded words there.
Isn’t a “result” always the “end” of something? So why do folks use the phrase “end result”? Is there a partial result of something? Or a beginning result? This is similar to “sum total.” The “sum” is a “total.” We’re using both for no reason (note that I did NOT say “both together” because again…redundant).
I enjoyed reading an article about taking vacations, and couldn’t help noticing that the author used the phrase “first started.” Can you have a second start? Or a “last start” to a trip? The same writer penned “final destination.” Well, I guess you can have a stop along the way, but a “destination” is typically where you want to end up, therefore it’s “final.” The poor writer gave the advice to “plan ahead.” Again, I don’t typically plan “behind” or “after.” The only way to “plan” is ahead, isn’t it?
Then I read a different article about going to a local amusement park. They used the phrase “added bonus.” Now, a bonus is something inherently added, so again, an uncalled-for adjective in that expression. The author of this piece said that the lines would call for waiting a “period of time.” As opposed to a “period of what,” I thought. This poor guy also said “increasingly more” which only marginally bothered me, because I actually think there can be increasingly less of something. Overall, however, it’s more word surplus to get the point across.
The amusement park article made me think of the ride operators who almost every time, say “Stay seated until the ride comes to a complete stop.” Is there any other kind of “stop?” Are there “partial” stops? “Incomplete” stops? “Half” stops?
I think we need to rise up and stop these superfluous words in our speech and writing. Did any of you catch the redundancy I used in this post? Kudos if you did, but if not, it’s not an emergency situation!