{"id":416,"date":"2008-11-13T12:00:21","date_gmt":"2008-11-13T18:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/free-gift\/"},"modified":"2011-05-31T19:36:07","modified_gmt":"2011-06-01T01:36:07","slug":"free-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/11\/free-gift\/","title":{"rendered":"“Free Gift”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I see and hear this phrase a lot.<\/p>\n

Problem:<\/strong>
\nThe adjective creates a redundancy.<\/p>\n

Explanation:<\/strong>
\nThe noun “gift” in this phrase means a thing or experience voluntarily given without any kind of reciprocal payment required or expected<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So the adjective “free” creates a redundancy when combined with the noun “gift”.<\/p>\n

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

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 “Free Gift”.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Solution:<\/strong>
\n“Gift”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3,15,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adjectives","category-common-english-blunders","category-nouns","category-redundancies"],"yoast_head":"\n"Free Gift" - Kirk Mahoney . com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/11\/free-gift\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Free Gift" - Kirk Mahoney . com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I see and hear this phrase a lot. 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