Opposite of "oxymoron"

[Patti Kurtz]

Thanks-- I'll pass it along!

By the way, what other examples of this sort of word exist?

At 05:23 PM 2/12/02 +0000, you wrote:
>--On Tuesday, February 12, 2002 11:47 am -0500 Patti Kurtz
><pkurtz at HEIDELBERG.EDU> wrote:
>
>>Hi.  Some colleagues of mine in the English department are curious as to
>>whether a term exists for word pairs that are the opposite of oxymoron--
>>that is, instead of contradictory, they mean the  same thing but are used
>>together, like "puppy dog" and "kitty cat."
>
>Yes, it's a pleonasm.  (Or you could just call it 'redundant'.)  They're
>certainly not limited to baby-talk.
>
>On a vaguely related note:  There's a long-running correspondence in the
>back pages of New Scientist about redundant acronym-noun combinations,
>which they've named 'RAS Syndrome'--i.e., Redundant Acronym Syndrome
>Syndrome.  An example found on Linguist List:  HPSG grammar (i.e.
>head-driven phrase structure grammar grammar).
>
>
>Lynne
>
>Dr M Lynne Murphy
>Lecturer in Linguistics
>Acting Director, MA in Applied Linguistics
>School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
>University of Sussex
>Brighton BN1 9QH
>UK
>
>phone +44-(0)1273-678844
>fax   +44-(0)1273-671320

Patti J. Kurtz
Assistant Professor, English
Advisor, Kilikilik


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