Teacher Discussion Forums

Is the word "redundant" tossed around far too much on forums? Is it used far too often with gay abandon?

One definition:

"A redundant text crammed with amplifications of the obvious"

But, what is obvious to one person may not be to the next, even to those who claim redundancy on things they do not understand. Doesn't one first have to understand why a certain word or expression was used in context before passing judgement on its value ?
[/i]

Yes, I think so. "Amplifications of the obvious" may be obvious only to insiders, and if an author is writing for a more general audience, he may reasonably feel it necessary to lay out some background.

Larry Latham

Larry Latham wrote:

"Amplifications of the obvious" may be obvious only to insiders, and if an author is writing for a more general audience, he may reasonably feel it necessary to lay out some background.

Yes, I agree. I posted the sentence "When I go to Joe's Pizza, I always get pepperoni." on a few forums and asked if the "always" was redundant. The usual, syntax obsessed, bunch screamed loudly that it was indeed redundant. They, quite correctly, said that in the similar, non-redundant, example ("When I go to Joe's Pizza, I get pepperoni.") if they didn't know the original speaker, they would have no reason to suspect that he/she was not telling the truth, or was exaggerating.

I then asked them why, if they did not know the original speaker of the "redundant" sentence, they felt could judge the honesty or exaggerative nature of the original speaker.

They had no answer.

The grammar mavens always seem to be just loose jointed enough to be able to get their feet in their mouths.

Larry Latham

Redundancy is a necessary part of communication. Without it there would be no safety net.

"I always get Pepperoni"
is different from
"I get Pepperoni"
since the second sentence doesn't exclude the possiblity that on the odd occasion you might get a Margerita, for example.

Stephen Jones wrote:Redundancy is a necessary part of communication. Without it there would be no safety net.

"I always get Pepperoni"
is different from
"I get Pepperoni"
since the second sentence doesn't exclude the possiblity that on the odd occasion you might get a Margerita, for example.

ç

Redundancy is a necessary part of communication. Without it there would be no safety net.

Yes, I think the idea of redundancy is not in question here, but the misuse of the term is.

<"I always get Pepperoni"
is different from
"I get Pepperoni"
since the second sentence doesn't exclude the possiblity that on the odd occasion you might get a Margerita, for example.>

I agree.

Stop me if I'm not following this discussion and I'm going in the wrong direction, and I realize I'm more information than necessary here

When discussing language, I find identifying redundancy is a necessary topic (that comes up repeatedly) because we constantly want to understand why our language changes the way it does. We get rid of certain uneconomical parts of our language because we want to make it easier to speak, but also because we want to eliminate redundance.

In written French, gendre and number identification in a sentence is indeed very redundant. "Les belles filles sont allées au cinéma" has 5 markers that the subject is plural and 3 that the subject is feminin when one word "filles" is all thats really necessary. Redundancy, in this case, causes many problems for both native speakers and learners. I find this a fascinating topic, myself.

The example given by Metal, on the other hand, is a subjective statement by someone criticizing someone else's work. And I do think that people use it in this manner a fair bit here. In this context, it sounds to me as if its being used by an intellectual to replace more direct words like "nonsense" or "b£llsh!t".

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

redundant:

4 : the part of a message that can be eliminated without loss of essential information

How about here?

When I go the the Roxy, I always see a comedy.

Wjserson is quite correct about French having more redundancy than English, though in the example he gives some of the markers disappear in the spoken version.

He is quite wrong however when he says

Redundancy, in this case, causes many problems for both native speakers and learners.

Redundancy causes no problems whatsoever for native speakers (the written code is a different matter) and is exceptionally useful, because it eliminates misunderstanding.

Imagine you are talking in a crowded restaurant, or over a bad telephone line. Some of the information in the original message will be lost, and if there were no redundancy it would become totally meaningless.

Indeed it is the lack of redundancy that makes English so unsuitable as an international language. The possibilities for misunderstanding between two non-native speakers, or a non-native and a native speaker, are much higher than in other languages.

On another forum somebody asked what lawyers would do if laws were framed in Plain English. An ex-lawyer hit the nail on the head. They would make double the money they make now arguing over what the words mean.

Seeing as the example I gave was written, SJ, the context for everything I said about native speakers was regarding the written French (I'd say native writers, but there really is no such thing) And I can say with absolute certainty that the writing example of redundancy I gave is indeed a problem for Francophones as well as Anglophones who want to learn French.

You said:

He is quite wrong however when he says "Redundancy, in this case, causes many problems for both native speakers and learners. " Redundancy causes no problems whatsoever for native speakers (the written code is a different matter)

Writing is indeed a different matter, and that is what I was referring to. So we both agree that redundancy is a problem in written French for native speakers and learners? Are we both wrong?

It's not the redundancy that's the problem. It's the fact that the written differences do not reflect oral differences.

I doubt if 'les enfants' presents a problem even though the 's' may not bepronounced in the second case. The fact that the 's' is often pronounced, albeit as a 'z', is sufficient for the average French speller to remember to stick it on plurals.

On the other hand I am pretty sure that the rules about preceding direct object agreement provide considerable difficulty to native speakers.

Sometimes the difficulties of native speakers and learners coincide, but when that happens we should remember that 'coincide' is a verb with 'coincidence' as a noun. The greatest difficulty learners of French (or German, Spanish or Catalan) have is getting the gender of nouns right. This presents no difficulty whatsoever to a native speaker - indeed if you give nouns that do not exist to a group of native speakers they will all assign them the same gender.

That sure was indeed a hypercorrection SJ : I'm wrong because I wasn't talking about oral French? I may have only mentioned written French but it's hardly "wrong" because of that.

The precise example I gave represents a difficulty (albeit, in written French only, if you have to hear it SJ) that both native and non-native speakers have. Difficulties in writing in French is, I'd say, a universal. Even native speakers have huge difficulties with the redundance in written French. In Canadian French schools, there's a constant effort to fix this simply because the written doesn't represent the oral (which is what its supposed to do). So your right in that sense SJ, there are problems in written French that don't happen in the oral. And I'm not talking about difficulties between native and non-native speakers either. Thats a totally different subject, that you chose to bring up.

French may have once been pronounced the way its spelled today, but we don't speak like Claude Favre de Vaugelas (16th and 17th century). Not even you SJ. And the redundancy of information regarding the subject's number or gender is one of those problematic aspects that still remain in the written language.