wseiber, you have just reminded me of something that happened in March where my use of the word pleonasm saved the day.

I was arguing with a client about two phrases she wanted to include on the label of a product we were creating for her - well not actually with her, but with the secretary to the president, who is supposed to be an expert in the French language and who corrects all of this buyer’s artwork proofs.

We had to have two pages of text in a 1 x 1 inch space, so I couldn’t afford to have useless sentences (a little exaggeration but very close to true) hanging about.

No matter how often I explained that the two phrases were redundant the secretary would say I was wrong until I said, “it is a pleonasm.” She got a quick blank look, and then said, “oh, I see what you mean.” Now, I wish I had won my point because she saw I was right but I realize I only won my point because she did not want to admit that she did not know what a pleonasm was.