For many people, a key obstacle to communicating better is the tendency to be verbose. We use several words when we need only one meaningful word. We end up sounding overly long-winded (a self-defining example). Long-winded, a word that has teeth, is memorably self-descriptive. It means verbose or overly wordy in getting to the point. Overly long-winded therefore means overly, overly wordy. Why take the emphasis off a great word like long-winded by adding a redundant word like overly?
Posts Tagged ‘pleonasm’
Overly long-winded
Tuesday, February 5th, 2013Carefully scrutinize pleonasm
Tuesday, July 24th, 2012Pleonasms are expressions that exhibit self-contained redundancy. Here are a few common examples: best ever, close proximity, completely destroyed, end result, false pretenses, may possibly, natural instinct, proceed ahead, and etc. Note that “and etc.” is also a pleonasm.
Overly long-winded
Tuesday, November 8th, 2011For most people, the key obstacle to communicating better is the tendency to be verbose. We use several words when we need only one meaningful word. We end up sounding overly long-winded (a self-defining example). Long-winded, a word that has teeth, is memorably self-descriptive. It means verbose or overly wordy in getting to the point. Overly long-winded therefore means overly, overly wordy. Why take the emphasis off a great word like long-winded by adding a redundant word like overly?
Pleonasm awareness
Wednesday, September 28th, 2011Pleonasms are expressions that exhibit self-contained redundancy. Here are a few more common examples: best ever, close proximity, completely destroyed, end result, false pretenses, may possibly, natural instinct, proceed ahead, and etc. (note that “and etc.” is itself a pleonasm).
