Pleonasm

  • Posted by marcus
  • June 9, 2006

pleonasm: the use of more words than are necessary to express an idea.

I’ve developed a pet peeve recently. It involves mostly sports commentators, but plenty of other people, including business managers, who are keen on adopting phrases from sports commentators. It is the use of the phrase “question mark” to denote an unknown. Such as the sentence, “The big question mark is whether Joe Pitcher will be able to make his next start.” The annoying thing to me is that it adds an extraneous word where it’s not needed. Adding mark after question simply adds another word and does nothing to add to the sentiment expressed. How is the first example any different than “The big question is whether Joe Pitcher will be able to make his next start”? Even the expression, “He is still a question mark” makes more sense, and is more meaningful as “He is still questionable.” Why use six words when four will do?

The only thing that I can think is that it sounds trendy and hip.

It’s superfluous and annoying.

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June 9th, 2006
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Comment Number:
1
Written by:
Stephen
Posted on:
June 9, 2006 at 12:59 am

YES, and when people add a word to an acronym that is included in the acronym. SAT test… ATM Machine… PIN number.. and so forth.

Stephen

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
Michael
Posted on:
June 12, 2006 at 3:40 pm

A former President of our country used to say “at this juncture” when “now” would have been sufficient. I think by using more words people think they are saying more, but they’re not.

Comment Number:
3
Written by:
Victoria
Posted on:
June 14, 2006 at 8:28 am

Maybe they are simply trying to sound “edumacated”?

Comment Number:
4
Written by:
Laura
Posted on:
June 19, 2006 at 3:38 pm

I agree that it is very annoying. I work in a place where the more words you use, the more important your point is. But it never really is. Most of the time, if they would just be succint, then the point would be driven home a lot sooner.

Comment Number:
5
Written by:
Michael
Posted on:
July 30, 2006 at 8:39 am

Perhaps it’s just easier to be wordy.

Mark Twain was asked to write a two page essay for a magazine in two days. His response was something like, “I can’t do it. I’ll need two weeks. If you want 50 pages I can get you that in two days.”

Comment Number:
6
Written by:
marcus
Posted on:
July 31, 2006 at 6:12 pm

\”I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had time to make it shorter.\” — Blaise Pascal (1623-62), written in a letter to a friend.

Comment Number:
7
Written by:
Matthew R. Lee
Posted on:
December 13, 2007 at 11:05 am

Dakwegmo- Thanks for the link to your on post Pleonasm.
It reminds me of a wonderful line from the book “Why Business people speak like Idiots: A Bullfighter’s Guide”

“This is just the kind of synergistic, customer-centric, upsell-driven, churn-reducing, outside-the box, customizable, strategically tactical, best-of-breed, seamlessly integrated, multichannel thought-leadership that will help our clients track to true north. Let’s fly this up the flagpole and see where the push-back is.”

- Why Business people speak like Idiots: A Bullfighter’s Guide, by Brian Fugere, Chelsea Hardaway and Jon Warshawsky. (Free Press, Div. Simon & Schuster, 2005)