Tags
editing, editing tips, Strong vs Weak Words, Strong Words, Tautologies, Tautology, Weak Words, writers, writing, Writing Advice
This is the second part of a “This isn’t necessarily a Strong vs Weak Words” post. It is a “Why use redundant words?” post. I can’t wait to see that you have to add. Comment here and I will do a post summarizing your “ack” phrases.
Robin is wise beyond her 25 years-of-age.
Pffft. 25. Ha!
Robin lies about her age. There is no way she is 25-years-old.
~~~~~
At this point in time, to thank Robin for her wisdom, wit, and wise words, I will send her my first-born-child.
Rather drastic, don’t you think?
At this time, Robin is off my Christmas card list.
(Don’t need the “at this time” either.)
~~~~~
I love Robin’s blog, but however, I wish she posted more often.
Good GAWD. Don’t encourage her!
I dislike Robin’s blog, however, she hangs on my every word.
~~~~~
Robin celebrated her annual birthday by doing one post for every year of her life.
You know where the delete key is, right? Do you know how many posts that is?
I ignored Robin’s plea for birthday wishes. She needs to take a long walk off a short pier.
~~~~~
The reason why I celebrate Robin’s birthday is she means so much to me.
What did you buy Robin? She is hard to please.
The reason I ignore Robin’s birthday is she is needy, needy, needy.
(Don’t need “the reason” either. Add “because” after the word birthday.”)
You know, I’m not “that” emotionally needy. However, all gifts are welcome.
Quick update on my folks . . . Dad is still in the hospital and likely to be there two more weeks. So you don’t have to get out your copy of Gray’s Anatomy (the medical reference book, not your DVD collection of Dr. McDreamy), I’ll keep it simple. He had surgery to remove a blood clot from his chest cavity, a filter was put in his leg to prevent a blood clot from travelling to his heart or brain, and his oxygen concentration is good, even though there is an air leak somewhere.
Mom continues to be mystified by what is going on, but her fears and anxieties eased a bit when he moved out of ICU.
My sincere thanks for the support you blessed me with over the past two weeks. Your concern means a great deal to me, my friends.
My thanks to you . . .
~ Robin
Robin Coyle 
I’ve thought about you – glad to hear things are stabilizing.
Irregardless of your words of wisdom, at this point in time………..
I’m laughing at your “annual birthday.” Many decades ago I used to celebrate my monthday. Everyone knew that I celebrated my birthday each month except the new gal that I had hired a couple of weeks earlier. I causally mentioned my November birthday and the next day, I found a homemade cake in the shape of a Turkey on my desk. She had made it for me, and I had to apologize profusely for misleading her. I took her out to lunch that day at a real nice restaurant.
Thanks for the update. It’s so hard to see someone going through so much. It seems bad when it’s a friend your age, but an elder or a child in the hospital, just pulls on your heart. Your poor mum. I can’t imagine. I hope it’s just happy memories that keeps her mind busy. With all the love in you and your family, I’m sure she has plenty of happiness to recall. Best To You!
You reminded me of something nice. My mom doesn’t hold on to grudges, bad memories, or past troubles. Never has. With her condition, she is grouchy in the moment, but not grouchy about the past. Thanks for reminding me of that personality trait of hers.
And I was all ready to watch McDreamy again! I’ve loved that guy since Can’t Buy Me Love! So glad your dad is doing better, but yikes! That’s a lot to go through. At least he’s out of ICU! Hang in there. I would like to add regarding your thoughts on unnecessary words, the rules are different for dialogue, I think. When writing dialogue, to make the characters believable, it should be written as they speak, which, for most of us is, like, you know, sometimes annoying… LOL. 🙂
Bust out Dr. McDreamy and pour a glass of wine. Lose yourself for a few hours.
Excellent point about dialog. Colloquialism and slang, if not overdone, add to the realism. Except for one lawyer I know, people don’t talk like edited manuscripts. I bet my lawyer comment hits a nerve with you! Sorry!
Hehe..That’s O.K. I never sent you my response. I will do that now!
Excellent points, but terrible examples; how could anyone dislike your blog?
How kind of you to say! Thank you.
I was sorry to hear your Dad’s path to recovery may never lead to independence. You kids have a tough time ahead. My thoughts are with you all.
I love being called a kid. Makes my 53 year-old-body want to play on a tire swing. I’ll call you from the hospital traction room tomorrow.
Flippant remarks aside, thank you for you kind words TWLG. Thank you. Really. Thank you.
Need to nurture those rogue mischievous thoughts – laughter can sometimes be in short supply! Take care of you, remember 🙂
Pingback: Strong vs Weak Words ~ Part 34 ~ Pleonasm and Tautology « Robin Coyle
Hi Robin, I have been away from your blog for a while.
Glad to hear your folks are doing well.
My prayers and thoughts are with them.
Best regards.
And I have been away from yours! I am ridiculously behind on blog reading. Salom and Hob.
Peace and love to you too 🙂
‘I’m just talking out loud here’. Rather than in your inside voice?
Good one. That is akin to “I thought to myself.” Who else would you be thinking to?
Indeed! The things that really gets me is the sort of false meta-textual-ness of saying out loud to someone that you’re just talking out loud. It’s like singing a song containing the lyric ‘I’m singing a song right now’ i.e. moving beyond tautology and into some new, strange, and entirely redundant realm …
Hi, Robin! “I just want to tell you” how happy I am that your father is out of ICU and mending. That blood clot stuff can be very scary. Still, he must have good doctors — not everyone improves after that kind of surgery. Good for him, and good for you and Mom as well. Continued best wishes, my friend!
Thank you Judith! I am hopeful that because he was so strong going into this health crisis, he will be quick to rebound. Quick is a relative term here . . .
I’m guessing that your positive attitude is helping him to heal, too. That is a tough job — I’m very proud of your willingness to take it head-on!
My personal opinion is that I should keep pulling for your family.
In my personal opinion, I think in my brain, that your personal opinion should be to pull for us.
Ouch. That hurt to type.
One of my peeves is when someone says ‘In my brain, I’m thinking…’ ARGH!
So glad to hear your father is on the mend (even though it will be a long road for him and the family). Best wishes and lots of love 😀
Thank you for your wishes and love. Gosh, in my brain, I am thinking, what a lucky blogger I am for such support. (Sorry, couldn’t help it.)
😀
You’ve had a lot to deal with lately, I hope everything straightens out for you real soon. xxoo
Thanks Maggie. We found out the bad news today that for everyday in the hospital, he will need a week to ten days in a nursing home doing rehab to regain this strength. They say he needs to be in the hospital another two weeks, making his total stay one month. 30 days in the hospital = 300 days in rehab and likely to not be in an independent living situation ever again. Sigh. I think I knew that was coming, but it is a shock.
Oh no… I’m so sorry Robin. This kind of news is never easy. Maybe it will go better than they think, sometimes it does…
Fingers crossed, Maggie. Fingers crossed.
Sometimes that generation bounces back faster than you expect. (But it will depend on his willingness to work…it’s hard – and the trauma from operation/medicine effects may make him struggle/be depressed at first.
The ICU is other worldly – good he’s out. (Oxygen- good.)
May be facing a new normal situation. With luck eventually in an assisted living situation with a small apt with cafeteria but someone there to manage meds and keep an eye on them. Several of my uncles (90-102) have done very well in those and have been happy.
Try to rest – things will work out as they will.
I can’t remember if I mentioned in any of my posts about my dad (oh God, I’m turing into my Alzheimer’s-addled mother), but Dad plays golf twice a week, they travel, and are active in their community (well, dad is). We are hoping that because his strength baseline was so high, he will bounce back quicker than the doctors are projecting.
We are “billing” the assisted living facility to my mom as a “hotel-stay” while dad is in the hospital. “Mom! It includes room service, or you can eat in the restaurant!”
You have several uncles from age 90 to 102? You come from good stock!
😦 😦
Thanks honey.
Drawing a blank on examples. Glad to see you’re blogging, and I hope things are going better for you. 🙂
I’m copying my response to Maggie here for you . . .We found out the bad news today that for everyday in the hospital, he will need a week to ten days in a nursing home doing rehab to regain this strength. They say he needs to be in the hospital another two weeks, making his total stay one month. 30 days in the hospital = 300 days in rehab and likely to not be in an independent living situation ever again. Sigh. I think I knew that was coming, but it is a shock.
Oh no. I’m really sorry. My thoughts are with you.
Just when I think my writing has improved, you throw something else for me to change. 🙂
Continued prayers for you and your entire family.
Thank you Dennis.
I’m guilty of using a lot of redundant, superfluous, extra, and unnecessary words (see what I mean?).
Things are obviously still tough for you all, keep ploughing ahead, big hugs!
I love, adore. and admire your comment. Oops. Was that overstating it?
Thanks for the big hugs!
Loving the tautology ~ glad to see dad on road to recovery 🙂 x
Fingers crossed.
How ya doin’, Robin? I hope you’re taking care of yourself!!!
The biggest errors I make in the tautology category are probably “the reason why” and “revert back.” I’ve gotten better at catching myself before I write them, but it’s still a problem.
How about “the reason why is because?”
Love seeing you Freshly Pressed! Congratulations. I’m curious . . . how did they notify you? Did you do a happy dance?
Unsolved mystery.
Glad to hear there is some progress for your Dad, Robin. That’s good news.
Good one!
Nice to see you back. Glad life is behaving.
You might want to slap me on the wrists after this one. I seem to recall something said (a L-O-N-G time ago) with regards to ‘is because’. I have no idea what the rule was… Is / was it true?
I remember that “rule” as well. The best example I could find was this:
http://www.getitwriteonline.com/archive/072303reasonbecause.htm
In the second sentence they use to illustrate their point has an unneeded “that.” Think I should be a smarty pants and tell them?
I need to ruminate on this one…..although now I need to go check my own grammar.. yikes!
Ruminate. Great word.
Others have already covered the obvious ones I can think of…. So I’ll focus on sending well wishes for your dad and hope that everything will soon be on smoother ground for you and your family.
Thanks JM. Fingers crossed he is on the mend.
“Null and void”, “Terms and conditions”, “Each and all”, ” “Redundant and pleonastic”. ;-P
It’s good to have you back, but don’t forget to take care of yourself.
Whow. Pleonastic. Good word. I’ll admit I needed to look it up.
Nice to be back for the moment. I head to my folks next week for my next stint at the hospital.
Glad to see you have one foot in the blogging world. I’m applauding Jenny’s examples. ATM machine… niggles at me. So much better to say I’m going to get cash from the hole in the wall 😉
Yeah, Jenny’s examples were great. ATM machine. Ha ha ha. Good one.
LOL! ATM machine. 🙂 Great one!
What’s that you say? You want my first-born child? Okay, he’s on the way. Nope. No take backsies. He’s yours now…
What time should I pick him up from the airport? Or, are you making him walk to California? What is his favorite dinner?
Just stock up on pasta. Lots and lots of pasta…
Oh good can we air our pet hates here? One of mine is saying’ prior to’ instead of before’ and ‘adjacent to’, instead of ‘next to’ – what’s wrong with direst simple Anglo- Saxon words, instead of pompous Latin roots?
Isn’t it funny how some words/expressions/phrases set our teeth on edge? Ahhhhhh . . . to be a writer and lover-of-words is a curse and a blessing.
Robin, glad to see you’re back.
You’re in my thoughts.
I have one foot in the blogging door, and one foot out. My time lately is disjointed. Argh! I can’t keep up with emails and blog reading. I know I have a couple emails from you I haven’t responded to. Bad Robin. Bad.
Thanks for your good thoughts.
Robin, good thoughts to you as your father heals — it sounds as if things are getting better (I hope, I hope) and the fact that you take time to write a witty post….well, kudos to you.
I can’t think of any right now. But I found this one: RSVP please. (the french meaning already says respond please).
But I’ve got a couple of words that make me crazy: Irregardless instead of regardless (But I think Webster’s actually has it as a word now since people use it so much) and supposebly (arhhhh, it’s supposedly).
If I don’t keep laughing, I teeter on the precipice of crying. I think he is improving . . . slowly.
I saw that Mr. Webster’s succumbed to letting irregardless” in his tome. So sad. Pressure from the masses beat him down. Supposebly. Good one. How about “library” pronounced “li-barry?” I have an education friend who pronounces it that way. Geesh.
Big hugs to you, Robin. I don’t know how you are holding together.
As to tautologies: how about these little doozies. I found them in a couple of stories I beta read recently:
In my opinion, I think that… (hmm, isn’t an opinion a thought?)
The shoes cost $50 dollars. (don’t need the word ‘dollars’)
He crawled onto the frozen Ice. (is there any other kind of ice?)
It was a sad misfortune. (Is there a good misfortune?)
It was 2 a.m. in the morning when she arrived. (is there another 2 a.m. other than morning?)
Hugs! 🙂
Thanks for the big hugs! You give the best hugs!
Your examples are excellent, in a bad kind of way. Watch for them in a future post.