Tautophrases

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

On the contrary to what G.O. writes. below, tautophrases are no more "defective" than any other figurative use of language. And the prescriptivist notion that they "should" "rarely" be used in "communication" is contradicted by the fact that speech in general is elliptical, ambiguous, and obtuse. Read Grice.

Rather, as in most things linguistic, "should" is irrelevant. Language? Man, it is what it is.

.
Garson O'Toole writes:

While these pseudo-tautological sayings are not redundant they are
still defective because elliptical, ambiguous, and obtuse expressions
should rarely be used for communication in my opinion.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

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