Unnecessary redundancies,

pleasant euphemisms and other trivia

Photo by Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru / The National Library of Wales on Unsplash

Internecine
You’ve read this adjective many times, sometimes preceded by words like deadly and almost always followed by nouns like warfare, struggle or conflict. But what does it actually mean? Most commonly it’s used to mean “deadly and internal”.

Some people, however, insist that its true meaning is simply “internal” (the inter prefix is surely the giveaway here). However, history is not on their side.

In its first recorded use in English, in 1663, internecine meant “fought to the death”. About a hundred years later, when he was writing his famous dictionary, Samuel Johnson defined the word as endeavouring mutual destruction. He took as his cue the prefix, meaning “between, among”. But according to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, he misunderstood: inter was actually being used in its less common - almost unheard of today - guise as an intensifier. Johnson was such a compelling authority, that his new meaning was widely accepted, and gradually shifted over the years to become “relating to internal struggle”. That’s the restricted meaning that some people still insist upon.

But meanings are given by accepted usage, not personal preference. Today, internecine is most widely used to mean internal and destructive, and the Oxford English Dictionary, for one, offers that definition. On that basis, the US Civil War was an internecine struggle, but WWII wasn’t – it was merely destructive. I’ll stick my neck out, then, and assert that to talk about deadly or savage internecine warfare is to flirt with redundancy.

A pair of twins
Is there any other kind?

In close proximity
As opposed to distant proximity?

Meet on a weekly basis
Presumably preferable to merely meeting weekly.

Ceased to exist
The phrase used by Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, in 2023 to describe the fate of Luna-25, which crashed into the surface of the Moon after its engines misfired.

4am in the morning
Ah, the morning am. Thanks for clarifying.

Added bonus
The bonus you get when the initial bonus wasn’t sufficient.

Free gift
Beloved of advertisers, who hate mere gifts.

Future plans
Generally the best kind. Certainly the only kind we have any influence over.

Past experience
Also the best kind, despite the fact we all hope for an abundance of future experience too.

Enter into
You may get a pass on this one in some circumstances. For example, no one says “enter a contract” - you enter into one, and that’s just how that idiom works. But don’t, whatever you do, enter into a room. (Or exit from it, for that matter.)

Restroom
I imagine there are a million other rooms every one of us would prefer to enter into should we require a wee rest.

Meet with
There’s wiggle room here too, but not as much as with enter into. If you bumped into your friend when you were out shopping this morning and had a spur-of-the-moment coffee with them, you met them. But if the meeting was prearranged and had a purpose - let’s say how to depose a tyrannical political leader and his or her lackeys - it’s useful to have meet with as a distinction from the unplanned meeting. See also lift up.

BJ
The last town my wife and I lived near boasted a BJ Autos on its main street. If that’s not great service, we repeatedly told one another to raucous laughter, what is?

A made up word
They all are.

The actual facts
Forgivable if for emphasis - for example, when another has proposed “facts” that are clearly preposterous. Otherwise a hanging offence.

In the event of
There must be an ISO standard that requires lift manufacturers to place pompous and wordy warning signs on each floor. Where you and I would say, clearly, succinctly and elegantly, “Don’t use the lift if there’s a fire”, they write, “In the event of a fire, do not use the lift”. By the time you’ve finished reading that sign, you’re already burnt to a crisp.

A proper warning sign.

Razed to the ground
Because raze is an uncommon word, its abuse can be forgiven. Except if you, a reader of language newsletters, do it, since you of all people should, and almost certainly do, know better. Raze is a close relative of erase, which may help keep your less nerdy pals on the straight and narrow.

Decapitated his head off
A phrase that one of our fellow churchgoers uttered many decades back when I had my youth and my faith - both of which have long since faded. It caused our whole family great mirth (the utterance, that is, not my hair and my faith), which tells you what a bunch of superior tossers we could all be.

Very unique
Not a hanging offence, but not to be used when careful (or pedantic, if you prefer) readers or listeners are about. Most dictionaries accept that the usage is so common as to not warrant any rearguard action. However, rearguardists still abound and if you value your reputation as a literate writer, steer clear. I’m with the liberals on this for the same reason that while you are either pregnant or not pregnant, you may also, if sufficiently expanded, be very or heavily pregnant.

Aren’t I?
Why do people say “I am (beautiful, a rascal, better than you, etc), aren’t I?”, as opposed to the more logical “I am, amn’t I?” Actually, amn’t I is common in colloquial Irish speech, and can also be heard at times in Scotland, Wales and England.

Birds not to stand under
The Tibetan blackbird’s scientific name is Turdus maximus. It can console itself in the knowledge that the rufous-sided warbling finch not only goes by the scientific name Poospiza hypochondria, but is also on the IUCN List of Threatened Species.

Bad words
Samuel Johnson, the 18th century lexicographer, excluded bang, budge, fuss, gambler, shabby, and touchy from his Dictionary of the English Language, dismissing them as vulgar slang.

Git
The Speaker of Britain’s House of Commons once ruled that git constitutes unparliamentary language. For my American readers, git in Britain isn’t a variant of get; it means a person deserving of contempt.

Plus
How do you spell the plural of plus? With one s or two? No less an organ than the Oxford English Dictionary offers both spellings, as does Merriam-Webster.

Although most nouns are pluralised simply by adding an s, the exceptions are plentiful. Some exceptions are straightforward, such as a singular y – as in berry – becoming -ies for the plural. But others aren’t.

For example, while the plural of studio is studios, the plural of hero isn’t heros, but heroes. No rule of thumb will guide you here – you just have to learn (or check) the spelling for each word.

Some words ending in -o give you a choice. Banjos and banjoes are both considered acceptable. Likewise tornados/tornadoes, volcanos/volcanoes, and many others.

It may be those inconsistencies that in 1992 led American Vice-President Dan Quayle to publicly “correct” a 12-year-old’s spelling of potato to potatoe. Quayle later claimed that he was relying on cards given to him by the child’s school (it was during a spelling bee), and while he had misgivings, he decided to trust the school. That clears that up then.