Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 June 19

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June 19

Enforced redundancy

The Australian media has been getting all a-twitter lately about what many of them are calling the upcoming "12-month anniversary" of Julia Gillard taking over as Prime Minister from Kevin Rudd. I hear this and my "aaaarrrrrgh" cells shriek with pain. People seem to have forgotten, if they were ever aware at all, that "anniversary" is from the Latin root meaning "year", and adding "12-month" to it is an egregious solecism. Or should be, but it's become almost necessary, because these days any time period at all after some notable event is called an "anniversary" of it, as long as it's suitably qualified: "two-week anniversary", "one-month anniversary", "six-month anniversary", etc. Consequently, just "anniversary" has become ill-defined, and it's become necessary to pin it down more precisely. If this is language progress, I hate it, but there you go.

I'm after some other examples where a perfectly fine word that's done sterling work for many centuries all on its own has suddenly become degraded to the point where it needs the support of extra words to make the meaning clear. Thanks. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 19:31, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

George Carlin compiled dozens of these in his comedy routines... One that stands out is the word "usage" which has two syllables but is otherwise an exact synonym of the shorter "use". Abuse of the English language was a favorite topic of his. ("Get on the plane? Fuck you, I'm getting IN the plane" always gives me a chuckle). There's more here and here and here; you can probably find sections of just about any of his comedy albums and/or movies and/or books where he makes similar observations on abuses of English. --Jayron32 20:05, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

See these pages.

http://www.fun-with-words.com/redundant_phrases.html

http://grammar.about.com/od/words/a/redundancies.htm

http://writing.lifetips.com/cat/56468/redundant-phrases/index.html

—Wavelength (talk) 20:09, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for those, Wavelength. My favourite is when someone says that so-and-so has now had her baby, and is asked what sex it is, and replies "She had a little girl/boy". A "little" girl? Do women these days often give birth to fully-grown adults? -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 20:51, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I think Jack's example is more specifically a retronym, which is where a word's meaning has drifted to such an extent that its original meaning comes to need a qualifying adjective word. A typical example is Acoustic guitar See also List of retronyms, though that doesn't list my favourite, "sex porn" (in contrast to, say, "gadget porn"). I thought I'd seen that mentioned on Language Log, but I can't find it there, and Google is, not surprisingly, very little help. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 20:21, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

The alternative to using "anniversary" for any time period is to coin a different term for each period, but then we would have such atrocities as a "weekversary", "monthversary", "decanniversary", "centanniversary", and "millanniversary". StuRat (talk) 20:40, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

The alternative, Stu? There's only one other possibility? The real atrocities are these "two-week anniversaries" etc. Why is it suddenly necessary to label things this way? What was wrong with "It's been two weeks since X happened"? -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 20:51, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Such words, where part of an existing word is suddenly replaced with another word, without any regard to the etymology, are a personal pet peeve for me. An "anniversary" is all right, but what is a "weekversary"? A "week" is all right, but what the heck is a "versary" supposed to be? JIP | Talk 20:52, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Here's the origin: [1]. The "versary" part comes from "versus", meaning "to turn", so a "weekversary" would occur when something turns one week old. The part that makes it ugly, in my opinion, is mixing Latin with the (Germanic ?) word "week": [2].StuRat (talk) 21:19, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

About two years ago I almost threw up because I heard someone talking about how she just ran her first "5k marathon". Although I guess that's not exactly the sort of example you're looking for (which would be something like people having to say "26-mile marathon" because people were overusing other terms. rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:04, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Some expressions for other time periods are sprinkled among the entries listed at http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Calendar_terms.

—Wavelength (talk) 22:20, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

An event occurring every week is hebdomadal, and an event occurring every month is mensual. (See http://www.onelook.com/?w=hebdomadal&ls=a and http://www.onelook.com/?w=mensual&ls=a.) Those words can be (or become) nouns also. (A weekly and a monthly are periodicals.)

—Wavelength (talk) 22:36, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Yuk. "Mensual" is a bit too close to "menstrual", and "hebdomadal" just sounds weird. StuRat (talk) 22:44, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Both "mensual" and "menstrual" derive from the Latin for "monthly". Actually, EO only lists "menstrual",[3] not "mensual". In any case, it's from "mensis" (month). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:14, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

New message: Francophones seem to manage all right with mensuel and menstruel. (See wikt:mensuel and wikt:menstruel.)

—Wavelength (talk) 01:57, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Probably because that would be the only word they have for it. "Monthly" is the general term in English, and "menstrual" has come to take a specific connotation. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:58, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if this fully complies with Jack's premise, but on another ref desk an OP used the term "foot pedal",[4] and nobody caught it right away. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:27, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

This is all lovely stuff, folks, and thanks. I'm after not just any examples of redundancy (of which there are legion), but specifically about cases where we're now required (or almost required) to add seemingly redundant words in order to make it clear what we're talking about, because the original word has been misappropriated for use in all sorts of places it was never designed for. I know there are other cases. "First ever" is a sort of similar one; this adjectival expression has become viral of recent times, even in contexts where it's already absolutely clear that there's no qualification required, but somehow it seems more first than "first". I suppose Neil Armstrong will soon be described as "the first ever human to set foot on the Moon". -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 02:07, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

The most obvious case is where the same word is repeated: "No, I didn't call on my cell phone, I called on my phone phone." Of course, there are often better alternatives, like "land line", in this case. StuRat (talk) 02:15, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, if you get technical about it, "land line" is redundant too. The "line" in telephone line originally referred to the wires used to transfer the signal. No wires, no line. Once you've established the signal comes by wire, the "land" is superfluous, as the wires for "land lines" aren't limited to land, and can be laid under water or through the air (on telephone poles). - On another note, I wonder if Jack would like to include in his collection constructions such as "most unique", where a previously absolute word has been dulled to the point* where it's now felt an intensifier is needed, much to the chagrin of language purists. (* pun not intended, but somehow apropos) -- 174.31.219.218 (talk) 05:50, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Fortunately, the founding fathers of the USA didn't make such grammar errors, because they were more perfect. :-) StuRat (talk) 06:26, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

WHAAOE: "Phone phone" is an example of Contrastive focus reduplication. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 08:03, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

See Extension (semantics) and An introduction to child development - Google Books.

—Wavelength (talk) 02:16, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Two pet peeves of mine: PIN number (where PIN stands for Personal Identification Number) and PAT test (where PAT stands for Portable Appliance Test). They set my teeth on edge every time I hear them! --TammyMoet (talk) 12:55, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

See RAS syndrome.—Wavelength (talk) 14:18, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

The fault there seems to be in over-abbreviating the term in the first place. Had it been called a "PI number", then nobody would feel the need to tack another "number" on the end. Plain "PIN" isn't always clear: "You need my PIN ? Do you mean my lapel pin ?" StuRat (talk) 17:39, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Or in the southern US, something you write with. Which, come to think of it, is nearly an example of the OP's question, as it's often called an "ink pen" so that the listener won't confuse it with a safety pin or whatever. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:47, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

My pet peeves are ATM machine (what do you think the M stood for?) and unique being used for something that is unusual but not the single example. That and using decimated when you mean obliterated. Googlemeister (talk) 19:07, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

• According to Google, there are plenty of weekly and monthly "journals" around – and even a number of annual ones! I guess this explains why there are also daily journals.
• For something a little older, try beechwood book for the original thing, not one of those newfangled paper thingies.
• There are also "monthly annuities", and therefore, obviously, also yearly annuities.
• Occasionally one meets "instrumental cantatas", giving raise to voice cantatas.
• Wine cellars can be found in the strangest of places nowadays, so that some people feel a need to speak of subterranean wine cellars when referring to the real thing.
• "Champagne" is produced in many countries nowadays, giving rise to French champagne.
• Sometimes it works the other way round. With all those male "chauvinists" nowadays, the original guys must be called chauvinist patriots.
• Similarly, there is an occasional need to say chestnut fruit when not referring to the tree or its wood.
• In contrast with oral literature, one sometimes speaks of written literature.
• Here is a paper about the analogue library in the digital world.
• Oral storytelling also has a nice ring to it.
• Is "metal xylophone" a correct term or just an error for metallophone? In any case there is a surprising number of references to wooden xylophones on the web. Hans Adler 18:05, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks very much, Hans, they're exactly what I was after. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 21:27, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I just used one today - "sea shipping" to emphasise that it's not being shipped by air. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 02:15, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

We also have Women's Weekly magazines that are published monthly. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:40, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

It might gross people out if it was "Women's Monthly". StuRat (talk) 14:32, 25 June 2011 (UTC)