Australian Use of Collective Nouns

I obviously didn’t check my response before posting. “…and you get a nonsense word”. I can’t recall what I actually thought I had typed. But anyway, “Blend the two” is the important point. Sadly, newspapers today are full of tautologies. A reflection on the standard of english teaching in schools today, I fear.

Regrettably many redundant words and phrases have crept in our spoken and written language, for example : New beginnings….Put forward earlier…Reiterate again…
We often hear words which have the prefix ‘Re’ being paired with the adverb ‘Again’ such as: Redo again…etc…
Pedantic? Guilty as charged :joy:

2 Likes

Fortunately English is infinitely adaptable, flexible and incomprehensible.

Are we expressing our selves uniquely through growing up in Australia with language fundamental to our colloquial heritages?
We don’t all speak the same way, but we do speak differently to the rest of the world, which is commonly claiming their version of English is exclusively proper.

Fans of “Little Britain” might offer some greater insight on what “proper” is these days?:wink:

As we are entertaining each other while it rains and the flood descends I have pillaged this list of tautology gems for fun. You probably should not read these all at once without pause. It will feel better when it stops hurting.

“tiny, diminutive, little Mark Shuman”
“he seems to be favouring a groin injury at the top of his leg”
“now the referee’s giving him a verbal tongue lashing”
“I don’t think the male genitals or the female genitals should be rammed down people’s throats … to use a colloquialism.”
“He’s making good forward progress”
“Son of a very famous father”
“A little bit marginal”
“Very mobile running”
“The kick had both height and elevation”.
“I don’t want to sound incredulous, but I can’t believe it”.
“Here they come, every colour of the rainbow – black, white, and brown”.
“A truly international field, no Britons involved”.
“This evening is a very different evening from the morning we had this morning”.
“He is one of the great unknown champions, because so little is known of him”.
“We must revert back to the status quo as it was before”.

As the challenge is too easy there will not be a prize awarded for identifying the professional communicator(s) responsible.

2 Likes

That is not a tautology. There are no redundant repeated ideas in this statement.

“A truly international field, no Britons involved”.

Not a tautology, just a contradiction.

Sometimes a tautology is useful for emphasis.

“I have tried to fix the problem. I will have to redo it again” meaning more than one attempt and giving a sense of frustration.

So the internet says, but I would think that the meaning would be clearer if
‘I will have to do it once again’ would be used :slightly_smiling_face:

What about duplicated redundant repeated statements?

What about them, and who cares, and does it matter? :wink:

@Gregr, please join the pedantic club, we miss you!:pray::relaxed:

I would have used the subordinating conjunction because rather than the comma after club. Or alternatively used a semicolon.
Am I accepted?
:smiley:

1 Like

Wholeheartedly! :laughing::joy:

1 Like

One of my bugbears is ‘close proximity’…and it sadly has crept into common journalistic use.

1 Like

Journalists catering to those readers who may not know what proximity means but everyone knows what close means?

1 Like

No, if this was the case there are a lot of alternative words which would be easily understood such as close by, near, adjacent to, neighbouring etc.

1 Like

ATM machine.

Very unique.

Decimate is pretty much always misused.

There is a game called “Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons” - I cringe every time I see that title.

1 Like

One of those ancient Roman empire words that has moved on from the original meaning.

But it grates me too when it is reported that my footy team has been decimated by illness or injury. So what if one tenth of the player list is unavailable? Four out of forty. That is normal.

1 Like

In what way?

As most of us know the historical meaning of Decimate is to reduce something by one tenth as it was done to a Roman unit of soldiers by way of punishment, usually having the soldiers stand at the edge of a precipice and pushing one in ten over the cliff. (Probably preferable than being placed in a sack of snakes and thrown into a body of water.)

There seems to be a preoccupation especially by journalists to use high-sounding words when plain language having the same meaning could do: a sport team could be ‘reduced’ in numbers by illness or injury?

1 Like

Yes

And yes again. There are so many examples of silly writing caused by the desire to find a new superlative or intensifier. There are plenty of old ones that are very suitable.

However insisting that “decimate” should only be used in its original sense is an example of the etymological fallacy.

2 Likes

I suspect the “us” who know is a small number, while the implied consequence might find wider favour.

It remains an appropriate outcome for a modern day sporting arena, especially when it is your team that is continually failing to perform. We are so often reminded it is not about the money, or is it?