Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Pleonasms

Yes, it's Photoshopped! No kittens were
squished in the taking of this picture.
A pleonasm is "the use of more words than those necessary to express an idea".

Choose 10 of the following pleonasms. Change one of the repetitious words to come up with a new -- and probably very odd! -- concept then use it in a sentence. Partial satisfaction? Ignorant experts?

(Sorry for the long list! After two whittles, this is what was left and I ran out of time to make it shorter.)

If you've come upon examples of pleonasms in real life or from your imagination, Anu Garg is running a contest this week (ends Friday, Dec 10).

absolutely essential
actual facts
anonymous stranger
artificial prosthesis
basic necessities
boat marina
bouquet of flowers
brief moment
burning embers
cacophony of sound
completely annihilate
desirable benefits
eradicate completely
face mask
fall down
favorable approval
final end
final ultimatum
fly through the air
free gift
frozen ice
full satisfaction
green [or blue or whatever] in color
harmful injuries
introduced for the first time
knowledgeable experts
lag behind
live studio audience
live witness
look ahead to the future
look back in retrospect
manually by hand
mental telepathy
natural instinct
new invention
over exaggerate
personal friend
positive identification
pouring down rain
protest against
pursue after
safe haven
sand dune
serious danger
sudden impulse
three-way love triangle
total destruction
true facts
truly sincere
unexpected emergency
unintentional mistake
very unique

There's even more at Pleonasms.

2 comments:

Trisha said...

Haha, that kittens pic reminds me of myself recently - I was fostering five VERY exuberant kittens at once. My gosh they kept me on my toes

Joyce Fetteroll said...

I can picture them! We've fostered kittens too. I think one litter had 8. And it's amazing how different all there personalities can be :-)