Words of the Month - Tautological Pleonasm

         Have you ever used an ATM machine, drunk chai tea, or visited the River Avon?  Congratulations; you have benefitted from pleonasm, also known as tautology, in the English language.  Pleonasm and tautology both mean "redundancy in linguistic expression."  The etymology of both is from Greek, pleonasm from “to be in excess” and tautology from “the same word or idea.”  (Note that tautology in logic is slightly different from language tautology.)  This redundancy can include foolish or needlessly repetitive-sounding phrases such as “burning fire,” but today I want to highlight some examples that have found their way into common and generally accepted English usage.  (Although some of these are still prone to fierce criticism from grammar pedants.)

   free gift, safe haven, convicted felon - In all of these cases the adjective is wholly redundant since its sense is already included in the noun alone.

   tuna fish - This may technically be redundant because a tuna is a fish, but to me the noun phrase tuna fish refers to the meat, as in a sandwich or casserole, while the word tuna by itself is more likely to refer to the whole animal, somewhat in the same way that English differentiates beef from cow and venison from deer.

        Pleonasm is especially prone to cropping up in the case of acronyms.  Once an acronym becomes the standard term for a thing and people stop saying all the words that go into it, we often find ourselves putting the base word back on for context and clarity.  That’s the case for

   PIN number (Personal Identification Number)

   ATM machine (Automatic Teller Machine)

   DC Comics (Detective Comics)

   ISBN number (International Standard Book Number)

   HIV virus (Human Immunodeficiency Virus)

   Please RSVP (Répondez S’il Vous Plaît, in which the s’il vous plaît is French for Please)

   RAS syndrome (Redundant Acronym Syndrome) - This was coined in 2001, tongue-in-cheek.

        The case of “please RSVP” brings up the point that tautologies often arise in the process of linguistic borrowing, when a phrase is really only redundant if you speak both languages involved.  Examples include

   with au jus - in which au means with in French.  My college dining hall used to have this on the menu and I always thought it was funny, but another way to think about it is that perhaps the phrase “au jus” is not really French here.  Maybe it’s simply become an English word for a particular kind of sauce, in which case adding “with” is perfectly proper.

   tsetse fly - in which tsetse means fly in Tswana

   the hoi polloi - in which hoi means the in Greek

   chai tea, head of cabbage, and chestnut - You can read more about these three tautological foods in my prior post C Food Special.

   the alfalfa, alchemy, elixir, algebra, alcove, and many others - Putting the article in front of these words is pleonasm, because they were all borrowed from Arabic with the Arabic article al- attached to them, meaning they all start with the already.  (Read more in my prior post about Arabic Origins.)

        Another place invisible linguistic-borrowing pleonasm often crops up is in place names.

   River Avon - in which avon means river in Welsh

   Sahara Desert - in which sahara comes from the Arabic for desert, (and also Gobi Desert, in which gobi is from Mongolian for desert)

   the La Brea Tar Pits - in which la brea means the tar in Spanish

   Torpenhow Hill - This one is a very popular illustration since it’s a quadruple redundancy, from Old English torr, Celtic penn, Old English hoh or Norse how, and Old English hill, each of the four elements meaning some variation of “hill,” or “rocky outcropping.”  The one caveat to this story is that while the village of Torpenhow is in fact on a hill, there is not any geographic place actually called “Torpenhow Hill.”  So our redundancy is merely triple.

        I find all of these examples fun, but the point that seems most significant to me is that considering them redundant could depend on what meanings speakers actually assign to the elements in question.  Tsetse fly, for example, is really not redundant because “tsetse fly” is simply the English name for a particular kind of fly, and the fact that its etymology involves another more general word for fly in Tswana is neither known to English speakers nor relevant.  On the other hand, I would argue that free gift is indeed a stupid phrase!  Do you have any particular loves or hates among these words?

[Pictures: Skipjack Tuna with Cherry Buds, wood block print by Utagawa Hiroshige, 1830s (Image from The Met);

Desert Storm, wood engraving by Paul Landacre, 1932 (Image from Bonhams).]