Kirk Mahoney . com

I heard this yesterday during a conference call.

Problem:
The phrase “up front” introduces a redundancy.

Explanation:
The speaker on the conference call was telling the other call attendees that he wanted to say something before he said something else.

The noun “preface” means a preliminary statement in a book or speech.

So the verb “preface” means to provide a preliminary statement.

And therefore following the verb “preface” with the phrase “up front” introduces a redundancy.

Solution:
“I want to preface this by saying …”

I saw this in a course for customer-service representatives.

Problem:
The list of adverbs contains redundancies.

Explanation:
The expression was part of legal counsel in a company’s course for its customer-service representatives:

(Quote) “Permission [from the customer] can be obtained verbally, in writing, or electronically.” (unquote)

Unfortunately, it has become a common English blunder to use the adverb “verbally” when people mean “orally” instead.

The adjective “verbal” refers to both oral communication and written communication.

But many people shy away from “oral” or “orally” when referring to spoken communication and instead use “verbal” or “verbally”, respectively. This is a mistake.

The second problem in the expression is that “in writing” refers to both paper-based communication and electronic communication.

So (quote) “in writing” (unquote) overlaps (quote) “electronically” (unquote) in the problematic expression.

The solution comes from recognizing that “verbally” should be replaced with the clearer adverb “orally” and that “in writing” should be replaced with the clearer “on paper”.

Solution:
“… obtained orally, on paper, or electronically.”
OR
“… obtained by telephone, by mail, or by email.”

I see and hear this phrase a lot.

Problem:
The adjective creates a redundancy.

Explanation:
The noun “gift” in this phrase means a thing or experience voluntarily given without any kind of reciprocal payment required or expected.

So the adjective “free” creates a redundancy when combined with the noun “gift”.

For fun, I searched Google for “free gift” (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about 9,110,000 matches.

Not all of these matches were what I was seeking. For example, Google returned “Free Gift-Giving Labels”, but this does not agree with the sense of the phrase (quote) “Free Gift” (unquote).

However, I am sure that many millions of the returned matches did agree with the sense of the phrase, which obviously makes this phrase a common English blunder.

Solution:
“Gift”

I saw this yesterday in a TV commercial.

Problem:
This phrase contains a redundancy.

Explanation:
(Quote) “Change of venue location” (unquote) appeared in Houston, Texas, in a television advertisement from Disney on Ice, an ice-skating theatrical performance company.

Disney put the phrase in the TV ad apparently because of Hurricane Ike’s impact on Houston.

If the phrase were approximately correct, then a hyphen should have been placed between “Change” and “of”, and another hyphen should have been placed between “of” and “venue”, so as to create a compound modifier of the noun “location”.

However, the noun “venue” and the noun “location” in modern parlance have come to mean the same thing, so this phrase contains a redundancy.

Beyond the redundancy, it is preferable to reserve the use of the noun “venue” to refer to the scene of a crime or to where a jury is convened.

This gives us the solution.

Solution:
“Change of location”

I have seen this in several announcements from one company.

Problem:
The adjective “leader-led” is self-redundant and does not tell you who is doing the leading.

Explanation:
Courses offered by companies before the advent of computers were called (quote) “corporate training” (unquote) or simply (quote) “training” (unquote).

The advent of computers and authoring tools made (quote) “computer-based training” (unquote) possible.

The advent of the Web and more authoring tools made (quote) “Web-based training” (unquote) possible.

These two phrases forced writers and speakers to look for a special phrase to distinguish non-computer-based training from computer-based training and Web-based training, but (quote) “non-computer-based training” (unquote) was too long and somewhat negative.

This resulted in the creation of the phrase (quote) “instructor-led training” (unquote).

Unfortunately, this phrase has deteriorated in some quarters into (quote) “leader-led training” (unquote), which says nothing about who is doing the leading of the training.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

• “instructor-led training” — 519,000 matches
• “instructor-led courses” — 85,800 matches
• “leader-led training” — 597 matches
• “leader-led courses” — 410 matches

This tells me that Web authors have used the meaningful “instructor-led” versus the meaningless “leader-led” by a ratio of 601-to-1, which is excellent.

However, this does not mean that “leader-led” as an adjective will not grow in popularity. I believe that the replacement of “instructor-led” with “leader-led” is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis.

It is simpler to write or say the two-syllable noun “leader” than it is to write or say the three-syllable noun “instructor”, and “leader” — not “instructor” — is alliterative with “led”.

Solution:
“Instructor-led training”

I heard this yesterday in a conference call.

Problem:
The word “on” does not belong in the sentence.

Explanation:
Someone was asking the conference-call facilitator to forward an email message to someone who was not attending the call. He said, (quote) “Please forward that on to him.” (unquote).

One of the definitions of the preposition “on” is in the direction of, as in (quote) “to travel on a northerly course” (unquote).

This definition also is the primary definition of the preposition “to”.

Therefore, the preposition “on” did not belong in the conference-call attendee’s sentence.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following (with the quotation marks) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

• “forward that to” — 71,600 matches
• “forward that on to” — 26,100 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the expression correctly vs. incorrectly by a ratio of 2.74-to-1, which is dreadful.

Solution:
“Please forward that to him.”

I saw this on the Web in a banner advertisement for a nutritional product promoted by Lance Armstrong.

Problem:
The phrase contains a redundancy.

Explanation:
The banner ad is for a product named FRS, and Lance Armstrong’s portrait and Tour de France record appear in the banner.

The “x” in (quote) “7x” (unquote) means “time”.

So (quote) “7x” (unquote) means (quote) “7-time” (unquote) — spelled 7-HYPHEN-T-I-M-E.

Therefore, either the “x” or the word “time” is redundant in (quote) “7x time Tour de France Winner” (unquote).

Solution:
“7x Tour de France Winner”
or
“7-time Tour de France Winner” (Notice the required hyphen between “7″ and “time”!)

I heard this during a telephone call yesterday.

Problem:
The phrase is redundant.

Explanation:
The noun “etcetera” — abbreviated as “etc.” — means and other unspecified things of the same type or class.

So “and etcetera” literally means and and other unspecified things of the same type or class.

For fun, I searched Google for “and etcetera” (including the quotation marks) and found about 67,200 matches.

Suspecting that this was only part of the story, I then searched Google for “and etc.” (including the quotation marks) and found about 9,280,000 matches.

Combining the matches for the abbreviated and unabbreviated forms, that’s over 9.3 million matches for this redundant phrase!

Solution:
“…, etcetera.”

I heard this a couple of days ago while watching a History Channel program on the Ark of the Covenant.

Problem:
The verb “pre-planned” is a nonsense word.

Explanation:
The “pre” in “pre-planned” is redundant, just as the “back” in “return back” is redundant.

To plan something is to do think about something before it occurs.

The “pre” prefix also means before.

It makes no sense to think about something before before.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following words (with the quotation marks) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

• “planned” — 155,000,000 matches
• “pre-planned” — 1,400,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have avoided this “pre-” redundancy by a ratio of almost 111:1, which is good but not great, especially in light of over one million(!) “pre-planned” matches.

Solution:
“It wasn’t something I planned.”

I heard this today on television.

Problem:
This is a nonsense word.

Explanation:
The “pre” in “pre-planning” is redundant, just as the “back” in “reply back” is redundant.

To plan something is to do think about something before it occurs.

The “pre” prefix also means before.

It makes no sense to think about something before before.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following words (with the quotation marks) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

• “planning” — 51,700,000 matches
• “pre-planning” — 890,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have avoided this “pre-” redundancy by a ratio of 58.1:1, which is okay but not very good, especially in light of nearly one million(!) “pre-planning” matches.

Solution:
“Planning”