Beware: Redundancy weakens writing

How often have you heard a friend say something like, “I had an urgent meeting at 2 a.m. in the morning,” or “It was unexpectedly surprising when my sister gave birth to a pair of twins”?

Here, what does 2 a.m. mean if not morning? What is a surprise if not unexpected? What are twins if not a pair? These redundant phrases are called pleonasms, meaning the use of more words than are necessary for the expression of an idea.

However, sometimes a writer may intentionally use a pleonasm to convey an idiomatic expression or to emphasize a particular idea. For example, phrases like “tuna fish” and “safe haven” are idioms in English. Hence, in written language, removing words not strictly necessary makes writing seem awkward at times, especially if the words are cut from an idiomatic expression. On the other hand, excessive use of pleonasm weakens writing and speech; words distract from the content.

The bottom line is, most writing should be concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.