Tautology (rhetoric)

In rhetoric, a tautology is an unnecessary or unessential (and sometimes unintentional) repetition of meaning, using different and dissimilar words that effectively say the same thing twice (often originally from different languages). It is often regarded as a fault of style and was defined by Fowler as "saying the same thing twice." It is not apparently necessary or essential for the entire meaning of a phrase to be repeated. If a part of the meaning is repeated in such a way that it appears as unintentional, clumsy, or lacking in dexterity, then it may be described as tautology. On the other hand, a repetition of meaning which improves the style of a piece of speech or writing is not necessarily described as tautology.

A rhetorical tautology can also be defined as a series of statements that comprise an argument, whereby the statements are constructed in such a way that the truth of the propositions are guaranteed or that the truth of the propositions cannot be disputed by defining a term in terms of another self referentially. Consequently the statement conveys no useful information regardless of its length or complexity making it unfalsifiable. It is a way of formulating a description such that it masquerades as an explanation when the real reason for the phenomena cannot be independently derived. A rhetorical tautology should not be confused with a tautology in propositional logic, since the inherent meanings and subsequent conclusions in rhetorical and logical tautologies are very different.

Tautology and pleonasm

Tautology and pleonasm are not the same thing. Pleonasm is the use of an unnecessary word that is implicit in the word it describes: A round circle. A big giant. Tautology is a repetition of the same idea in different words: A huge great big man. Say it over again once more. (Say it over. Say it again. Say it once more.) The crucial difference is that "Repeat it again" is a pleonasm, because again is inherent to "repeat". Repeat and again do not simply mean the same thing, which means that this is not a tautological repetition of the same thing in a different word – just as tuna and fish are not the same thing.^[1]

Examples of tautological expressions

Expression	Why it is usually a tautology	Why it may not be a tautology
"the reason why" or "the reason is because"	"reason" is already by definition a description of why something happens.	"Reason" implies a deeper insight into the cognitive cause for action. "Why did he cross the street there?" - "There was a crosswalk." vs. "What was the reason why..." subtly demands further explanation into the significance for the individual. Note: This use only pertains to cognitive (reasoning) entities.
"free gift"	"gift" is, by definition, something given without charge.	May be used to emphasize the fact that there is no hidden expectation of reciprocity.
"cheapest price"	"cheapest" means "lowest priced", thus "cheapest price" is actually "lowest priced price". Also it is almost a non-sense, as a price is not to be bought.	Using "cheapest" on its own may imply "low price, low quality", whereas "cheapest price" emphasizes that the sale price is the lowest without connotations of poor quality.
"first introduced"	"introduced" generally implies that it is the first time that someone or something has been presented.	A speaker may be introduced to different audiences on different occasions. It would be correct to refer to the first such occasion as being when that person was "first introduced".
"new innovation"	"innovation" is defined as something new.	In context, there might have been previous innovations.
"forward planning" or "planning ahead"	"planning" is always done in advance.	May be used to differentiate the usual planning from a different form of planning done well in advance. For example: "Besides planning this week's meeting in detail, we should also do some forward planning of next week's meeting."
"faster speed"	"faster" means "greater speed", thus "faster speed" is actually "greater speed speed".	"faster" may refer to either an absolute magnitude of speed (e.g. 90 km/h), or the time taken by an event. Mapping software is an example which allows for specification of preference. Unless referencing true physics, where faster deceleration is also acceptable.
"added bonus"	"bonus" is an added extra, thus "added bonus" is actually "added added extra".	May be used when referring to an additional bonus. For example: "Buy two and receive a bonus pencil sharpener, buy five and receive an added bonus steak knife."
"over-exaggerate"	"exaggerate" means "overstate", thus "over-exaggerate" means "over overstate".	May be used to differentiate regular exaggeration from excessive exaggeration. For example: "Exaggerate the size of it a little bit if you like, but don't over-exaggerate it, otherwise you won't seem credible." Proper exaggeration would simply be emphasis, compared to overemphasis. May also be used to show that the exaggeration is done to make the subject seem greater than it is as opposed to "under-exaggerate"
"short summary"	a "summary" is a "shortened" version of a text	May be used to differentiate a very short summary from one of average length.

In some phrases such as "I can see it with my own eyes" or "I made it with my own hands" the tautology is a rhetorical device that adds emphasis, as double negatives used to do. Expressions such as "all in all" or being able to "read and write" (to have literacy) are not strictly tautological and are instead referred to as siamese twins.

Repetitions of meaning in mixed-language phrases

Repetitions of meaning sometimes occur when multiple languages are used together, such as: rice pilaf ("pilaf" is Armenian for "rice"),"chai tea" (tea tea), "the La Brea Tar Pits" (the The tar Tar Pits)), "Ninja Assassin" (assassin assassin), "monsoon season" (season season), "the hoi polloi" (the the many), "Sierra Nevada mountain range" (Snowy Mountain Range mountain range), "Sahara Desert" (Deserts Desert), "Gobi Desert" (Desert Desert), "shiba inu dog" (little bush dog dog), "shiitake mushroom" (mushroom mushroom), "Koi carp" (Carp carp), Jirisan Mountain" (Jiri mountain mountain), "Mississippi River" (Great-river river), "Rio Grande river" (big river river), "cheese quesadilla" (cheese cheesy-thing), "salsa sauce" (sauce sauce),"Lake Tahoe" (Lake Lake), "Faroe Islands" (Sheep Island Islands), "with Au_jus juice" (with with juice juice), and "Angkor Wat temple" (Angkor Temple temple). Possibly the most extreme example is "Torpenhow Hill" (Hill-hill-hill Hill, in four languages). "Breedon on the Hill" in Leicestershire is a similar example; its name means "hill-hill on the hill".

The tautological status of these phrases is somewhat subjective and can be harder to detect than monolingual varieties, since they are only perceived as tautologous by people who understand enough of each of the involved languages, and because of the way that words change meaning as they drift from one language to another. For example, chai is Hindi for "tea", but in the United States, where the phrase "chai tea" is common, what is referred to as "chai" is more precisely "Masala chai."

Similar examples of repetitions occur when multiple languages are used in the same geographic area, even when the populations are generally well aware of the meaning of the redundant words. In bilingual (French and English) areas of Canada, for example, people may refer to the "Pont Champlain Bridge" (Bridge Champlain Bridge). Tautologies like these may come into spoken English when written language compresses a bilingual presentation (e.g. from the expected "Pont Champlain / Champlain Bridge" to "Pont Champlain Bridge"), a technique commonly used in Canada, Belgium, New Mexico and other bilingual areas to save space on road signs, grocery packaging, etc, and particularly convenient when one language usually use adjectives and modifiers before the noun and the other after, as the English/French and English/Spanish pairs do.

In New Mexico, the Arroyo del Oso (a ravine running through Albuquerque) is known in English as "Bear Canyon", but sometimes appears as "Arroyo del Oso Canyon" (Small-canyon of-the Bear Canyon) or even "Bear Canyon Arroyo" (Bear Canyon Small-canyon). Also in New Mexico is the La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe (the The Inn Hotel). Both Las Cruces, New Mexico and Tucson, Arizona have a Picacho Peak (peak peak).

Redundant expansion of acronyms

In some cases an acronym or abbreviation is commonly used in conjunction with a word which is actually part of the shortened form. One of the better known examples of this is "PIN number", which is often used when explaining the concept. Other common examples include ATM machine, ISBN number, HIV virus, UPC code, and VIN number. This phenomenon is humorously, self-referentially referred to as RAS syndrome (Redundant Acronym Syndrome syndrome).

Intentional repetition of meaning

Intentional repetition of meaning intends to amplify or emphasize a particular thing about what is being discussed: to repeat it because one cares about it. A gift is by definition free of charge (and may be said in Cockney to be given Latin: gratis), but one might talk about a "free gift" to emphasize that there is no small print, be it money or an expectation of a return, or that the gift is being given by volition.

This is related to the rhetorical device of hendiadys, where one concept is expressed through the use of two, for example "goblets and gold" meaning wealth, or "this day and age" to mean the present time. Superficially these expressions may seem tautologous, but they are stylistically sound because the repeated meaning is just a stylized way to emphasise the same idea.

Much Old Testament poetry is based on parallelism: the same thing said twice, but in slightly different ways (Fowler^[2] puts it as pleonasm).

Deceit is their sole intention, their delight is to mislead
— Psalms 62

But the emphasis on this is changed, because in the first the sole, the individual is emphasised (from Latin: solivagus) but in the second the pleasure is, though more or less the same thing is being said. This can be found very frequently in the Psalms, the Books of the Prophets, and in other areas of the Bible as well. One explanation of this is that when the Bible was translated into Anglo-Saxon, Norman French was still common among the aristocracy, so expressions like "save and except" were translated both for the commoners and the aristocrats;^[2]^[3] although in this case both "save" and "except" have a French or Latin origin.

Fowler^[2] makes a similar case for double negatives; in Old English they intensified the expression, did not negate it back to being a positive, and there are plenty of examples in authors before the eighteenth century, such as Shakespeare. In Modern French, for example, the "ne-pas" formation is essentially a double negative, and in many other Western European latinate languages the same applies, with "ni" or "no", mutatis mutandis, emphasising instead of negating the initial negative. In common French, the "ne" is quite typically dropped, as we believe it was in Vulgar Latin.

Examples from popular culture

Lord Polonius used a tautology in Act 2, Scene 2 of Hamlet by William Shakespeare when he said the famous lines: "Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief: your noble son is mad: Mad call I it; for, to define true madness, What is't but to be nothing else but mad?"
Some of the notable quotes said by, or attributed to, baseball player and manager Yogi Berra are considered humorous because they are, on the surface, tautological, including "We made too many wrong mistakes" and "You can observe a lot by watching."
In a 1988 campaign speech in Ohio, George H. W. Bush said, "It's no exaggeration to say the undecideds could go one way or another."^[4]
The Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution: In New York v. United States, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor stated, "The Tenth Amendment likewise limits the power of Congress, but this limit is not derived from the text of the Tenth Amendment itself, which, as we have discussed, is essentially a tautology." O'Connor reasoned that the Tenth Amendment simply reiterated what was already built into the structure of the Constitution generally: When the States consented to the Constitution they expressly delegated certain powers to the Federal government. Implicitly, what was not given was necessarily retained by the states as the exception that proves the rule.
In his book Mostly Harmless, Douglas Adams used the phrase, "Anything that happens, happens. Anything that in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen. Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again. It doesn't necessarily do it in chronological order, though."

References

^ Greeff, Francois (17 February 2003), The Hidden Code of Cryptic Crosswords, Foulsham, pp. 175 and 176, ISBN 978-0572027780
^ ^a ^b ^c Fowler, Henry Watson (1 April 1983), Gowers, Sir Ernest (ed.), Modern English Usage (2nd ed.), Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0192813893
^ Bryson, Bill (29 July 1999), Mother Tongue: The English Language, Penguin Books, ISBN 978-0140143058
^ Fein, Esther B. (1 July 1992). "Book Notes - Correction Appended". New York Times. Retrieved 3 December 2009.

External links

[1] Greeff, Francois (17 February 2003), The Hidden Code of Cryptic Crosswords, Foulsham, pp. 175 and 176, ISBN 978-0572027780

[Fowler-2] Fowler, Henry Watson (1 April 1983), Gowers, Sir Ernest (ed.), Modern English Usage (2nd ed.), Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0192813893

[3] Bryson, Bill (29 July 1999), Mother Tongue: The English Language, Penguin Books, ISBN 978-0140143058

[4] Fein, Esther B. (1 July 1992). "Book Notes - Correction Appended". New York Times. Retrieved 3 December 2009.

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