pleonasms

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:27 AM -0800 2/13/02, ANNE V. GILBERT wrote:
>Erin:
>
>
>>  There's a largish article on this in the new VERBATIM book, called
>>  "Pleonasties" by Dr. Harold Ellner.
>>
>>  Most of his examples are sentence-length, but he does have some
>>  two-word examples:
>>
>>  skin rash
>>  liver cirrosis
>>  face mask
>>  mentally insane
>>  crooked racketeer
>>  new innovation
>>  new recruit
>
>"Ink pen" is another one. I hear a lot.
>Anne G

That can be motivated by homonymy avoidance, to distinguish it from
"pig pen", or if you're in the relevant dialect from "straight pin",
"hat pin", etc.   Cf. "lightweight" or "light-colored" vs. "light"
and similar examples discussed by Bloomfield, Menner, Bolinger et al.
Either the modifier or the head can be supplied to forestall
misinterpretation.

larry