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(U) Write Right: Too Much Redundancy is Redundant
FROM:
of the Reporting Board (S12A)
Run Date: 01/28/2005
(U) We start off the New Year with an excerpt from comedian and
wordsmith George Carlin's latest book*, which we consider an
appropriate follow-up to our recent admonition against
redundancy. Mr. Carlin calls this exercise...
"Count the superfluous redundant pleonastic tautologies"
(U) "My fellow countrymen, I speak to you as co-equals, knowing
you are deserving of the honest truth. Let me warn you in
advance, my subject matter concerns a serious crisis caused by an
event in my past history, the execution-style killing of a security
guard on a delivery truck. At that particular point in time, I found
myself in a deep depression making mental errors which seemed
as though they might threaten my future plans. I'm not overexaggerating; I needed a new beginning, so I decided to pay a
social visit to a personal friend with whom I share the same mutual
objective and who is one of the most unique individuals I have ever
personally met. The end result was an unexpected surprise. When I
reiterated again to her the fact that I needed a fresh start, she said
I was exactly right, and as an added plus she came up with a final
solution that was absolutely perfect. Based on her past experience,
she felt we needed to join together in a common bond for a
combined total of 24 hours a day in order to find some new
initiative. What a novel innovation! And as an extra bonus, she
presented me with a free gift of a tuna fish. Right away I noticed
an immediate positive improvement and although my recovery is
not totally complete, the sum total is that I feel much better now,
knowing that I am not uniquely alone."
(U) Be careful; not every adjective or adverb in the above
paragraph is superfluous and many are arguable, so we are not
going to publish a "correct" number; this is merely an exercise
intended to help writers examine their word use. This brings us
back to last month's column as well; we admit we could probably
have worded our punch line about "successfully" better, as several
indignant computer scientists have informed us. The use of
"successfully failed" is indeed a legitimate computer term -- but it
is non-redundant only in that limited context. This is what "jargon"
means, and why one should avoid it out of that context.
SERIES:
(U) Write Right '05
1. Write Right : Too
Much Redundancy is
Redundant
2. Write Right -SIGINT Myths: The
Traffic Fairy
3. Write Right : There
Is No Index of
Forbidden Words
4. Write Right :
Avoiding SIGINTisms
5. Write Right : A Note
on Validity Wording
6. Write Right : Brevity
Can Impede Clarity
(or, A Capital
Situation)
7. Write Right :
Opening the Traffic
Fairy's Packages
8. Write Right :
Management Theory
Applied to Reporting
9. Write Right : Give
the 'Key Points' Style
a Try
10. Write Right : Still
More on the Traffic
Fairy
*(U) Footnote: The book is entitled "When Will Jesus Bring the
Pork Chops?"
(U) See earlier "Write Right" articles in the Write Right 04 series.
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)."
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