Pleonasm - Wordsmith.org

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#195073 - 12/16/10 08:43 AM Re: Pleonasm [Re: RonDavis]
LadyReader stranger Registered: 08/28/06 Posts: 3	Today's quote, "Like a horny sightless woman on a blind date, she begins to knead her heavy friendship-ring-laden fingers into my face. 'Leptorrhine nose ... kumquat-headed ...'", contains a pleonasm.
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#195084 - 12/16/10 12:25 PM Re: Pleonasm [Re: LadyReader]
LukeJavan8 Carpal Tunnel Registered: 06/23/08 Posts: 5289 Loc: Land of the Flat Water	WELCOME, LADYREADER _________________________ ----please, draw me a sheep----
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#195087 - 12/16/10 03:27 PM Re: Pleonasm [Re: LadyReader]
olly old hand Registered: 12/18/06 Posts: 932 Loc: Auckland, New Zealand	Well spotted
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#195100 - 12/16/10 09:46 PM Re: Pleonasm [Re: olly]
Faldage Carpal Tunnel Registered: 12/01/00 Posts: 13655	Originally Posted By: olly Well spotted Dunno. Leptorhine is an adjective and lepto- is a combining form. You can't really say "Like a horny sightless woman on a blind date, she begins to knead her heavy friendship-ring-laden fingers into my face. 'Leptorrhine ... kumquat-headed ...'" or "... friendship-ring-laden fingers into my face. 'Lepto nose ... kumquat-headed ...'" As for instances of ATM without the machine or PIN without the number, sure you'll run into those in the wild. They don't make ATM machine or PIN number wrong even if context makes it clear what you're talking about without the machine or number. Even with context there can be confusion. Teller at the bank, helping a confused customer with his ATM card: "Do you have your PIN?" Customer: "Yes ma'am. Rat cheer in mah pocket. It's a BIC."
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#195102 - 12/16/10 11:42 PM Re: Pleonasm [Re: Faldage]
Jackie Carpal Tunnel Registered: 03/15/00 Posts: 11579 Loc: Louisville, Kentucky	Rat Ahem. That should be raht. Rat is pronounced ray-ut.
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#195108 - 12/17/10 06:09 AM Re: Pleonasm [Re: Jackie]
Faldage Carpal Tunnel Registered: 12/01/00 Posts: 13655	I'm spelling using SWE conventions. If I'd meant it to be pronounced ray-ut I'd've spelled it ray-ut.
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#195112 - 12/17/10 09:54 AM Re: Pleonasm [Re: Faldage]
tsuwm Carpal Tunnel Registered: 04/03/00 Posts: 10464 Loc: this too shall pass	and if I'd've meant PIN to be pronounced 'pen'.. well, I didn't, because it's just not, here.
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#195119 - 12/17/10 07:55 PM Re: Pleonasm [Re: RonDavis]
Faldage Carpal Tunnel Registered: 12/01/00 Posts: 13655	The argument that there's other ways of saying it without confusion so the way you're saying it is wrong is a non-starter. There's always other ways of saying it.
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#195128 - 12/18/10 09:22 AM Re: grammaticasters of the whirled peace untie [Re: RonDavis]
zmjezhd Carpal Tunnel Registered: 08/13/05 Posts: 3269 Loc: R'lyeh	Nobody has said yet what exactly is wrong with redundancy. It seems useful to me. Sometimes its inflectional concord between words (which is a requirement of some languages and its absence would signal a grammatical error); sometimes it's for rhetorical effect (and we're all for that where and when appropriate); sometimes it's to avoid ambiguity (which seems a good thing, too); and sometimes it's something which annoys a select group of speakers (who usually seem wrong about other aspects of language, so I'd say it's something to do with them and not the language).. _________________________ Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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#195133 - 12/18/10 09:34 PM Re: grammaticasters of the whirled peace untie [Re: zmjezhd]
Faldage Carpal Tunnel Registered: 12/01/00 Posts: 13655	This subject came up in the context of pilotless drones back almost 4 years ago on Language Log. They do a pretty good job of discussing the nature of modification.
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