Words, Grammar and Redundancies II

NOTICE: The first part of this title has already been posted, and may be seen by “scrolling down” the “elevator” on the right part of your screen, using your mouse and “left-clicking/holding” on the elevator.

Please read THAT one first, in order to properly understand THIS one. Thanks.

In the first one, I indicated that this subject will be “weird”, since it consists of, basically, definitions or grammar rules.

While in the first one, I awoke at 5AM thinking about the subject, then getting up to start it, this is a couple of days later, and I’m wide awake!

(For now, at least. I AM retired, and sometimes, even tired.)

Though I mentioned one case of "redundancy" last time, I want to pursue that further.

A long time friend in Springfield named Raymond Currie has been almost “obsessed” with redundancies. He printed a list of these errors (maybe 100 of them), entitled, “Baby Puppies I Have Known”. I hate it like everything that I can no longer “put my hands on it”, but, I just now talked to him, and he has agreed to send me a copy of the list.

Ray, like me, is almost “superannuated” at 86 (I’m 84). By the way, Ray tells me that he teaches a Senior Citizens Sunday School Class at his church, consisting of students older than he! (Is it the water there, or what?) Regular readers of my “Blog” will like it that he remarked about my “perspicacity” in remembering part of his street address. (Perspicacity - “acute perception”).

(Break for more info) Got it!

I have now received from Ray the “Baby Puppies” he talks about - over a hundred on this list.

Re-reading these, I’m rather embarrassed at how I almost regularly violate some of these “redundancies”.

Here are some readily used phrases that are, really, “redundancies”, or “tautologies”, as a newspaper writer called them:

“Brief glimpse. Crimson red. Fatal slaying. Most immediate. Common vernacular. Fair and equitable. False pretenses. Clear transparency. Over and above. Basic fundamentals.”

On and on. In EVERY case, the second word is not needed! Redundancy! Whew!

There are more: “Wet and soggy. Merge together. Self conceit. Mechanical robot. Unexpected surprise. Armed gunman.”

Enough of that. I’m embarrassed.

In “Barbies Time”, I mentioned children and grandchildren, as well as “the love they garner, and offer.”

I wondered about using “garner”, but in looking it up, I felt secure. One of the descriptions mentions: “to earn or acquire something by effort.” That seemed to fit, though I suppose that word is not often used in talking of the love children receive. They probably don’t make an effort to be loved. Maybe a mistake.

One of the problems I have in these postings, is knowing when to use quotation marks, parentheses, italics, capitals, etc. I haven’t mastered it yet, I think. Back in the post “Blabbermouth, Confession and Quotations”, I used A LOT of quotations (thus part of the title).

In that post, I used a set of parentheses 13 times! Then, I used Capital Letters another 13 times for emphasis! And, I used 30 (count ’em), 30 sets of quotation marks. (I have to admit that I PURPOSELY used several sets of quotations, to fit the title, I guess. Though, actually, I changed the title to include all these uses.) I wondered if anyone would notice so many. (Why am I revealing all of this?)

But, when are these emphases proper? I don’t know. I use them to separate one phrase from the text, I guess.

Such is the life of a “blogger”. (I didn’t HAVE to become one, you know!)

In “New Guinea II”, I fell back on a “trick”, or “practice” that I like to use - familiar quotations out of context. I said, for example, “Since this location was close to the sea, we had plenty of water - but ‘not a drop to drink’” You know - “Water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink”? You’ll find me, if you haven’t already, using familiar quotations “out of context”, for effect.

In “Toledo Fiasco”, I listed something I like to do - tease. And before A LOT of people. ("Are all of you folks going to New York?") I think I’d best not do these things when any family members are around. They’d be embarrassed. How many people have an 84 year old parent/grandparent who “makes a fool of himself” before a lot of people? I try to do these things when I’m by myself, or, maybe when Bobby is with me. He’s my 37 year old grandson. I think he appreciates these things. He laughs with his grandpa. But, I guess I’m just a “show-off”. As well as “being gabby” on my blog.

Also, I like to “poke fun at myself” - as evidenced by my reporting how I talked, impertinently (brash, bold or lack of respect) to my future father-in-law, and how he teased me about being short. I did that in “New Guinea and Manila”. And, in “Nicknames”, I joked about the “crazy” nicknames I’ve gotten.

Another thing I don’t know about, is where to put a quotation mark or period, when a quotation and sentence end together. Which goes first? The “period/question mark”, or the “quotation?”. What is the rule? Beats me! I just do what “seems” to be proper at the time. I was corrected on this one time by a retired school teacher, but I neither remember who she was, nor what she said. (I almost broke another rule right there. I ALMOST used “neither” and “or” together. Typo, actually. But I had to add “nor”.

In “Cell Phones”, did you notice I used the words - “ubiquitous and omnipresent”? I was showing off! They essentially mean the same thing, so wouldn’t that be a “redundancy”? I think so.

OUCH! I just looked them up, and they DO mean the SAME THING! “found everywhere”. (Tautology!) (Redundancy!)

I just thought of something else. I wonder if I’m trying to be “honest” like Bobby’s sister, Molly? She’s so honest on her blog “Close to Home”, that it’s almost embarrassing. She’s a “gem”.

And, to finally end this “self-flagellation” (strong self criticism), I’m so “proud” of my BlackBerry 8330 Smart Phone, that I listed ALL of its “attributes”(quality, property or characteristic) in “Cell Phones”. Bragging, actually.

Whoa……….that’s taking “confession” a little too far.

Really!

“Do nothing through strife of vain-glory, but let each esteem other(s) better than himself.” Philippians 2:3

Have mercy!

(Wait a minute! Should I be revealing all my “trade secrets”? Will there no longer be a “mystery” about me? Hmmm! Too late now!)