I am what I am ....

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Thu, Apr 22, 2010 at 9:08 PM, James Harbeck <jharbeck at sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
>>Is there a technical term for such silly phrases?  Of course, the end of the
>>statement is "a yam."
>
> Tautologies, I suppose.

Safire called them tautophrases.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/magazine/07wwln_safire.html


--Ben Zimmer

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org