Redundancies

The Dreaded Double “is”

Common English Blunders, Hypercorrection, Redundancies, Verbs

A site visitor by the name of Kyle today reminded me about this common English blunder.

Problem:
Some people follow one “is” by a comma and another “is” when speaking.

Explanation:
Here is Kyle’s first example:

“What I’m trying to say is, is that I can’t remember his exact words.”

Read this example aloud, and you will recognize the pattern.

Read this example silently, though, and you will see the problem. The speaker, perhaps out of a sense of hypercorrection, has put a pause (the comma) after the first “is” and has put a second “is” after that pause — as if the listener has forgotten about the first “is” instance.

Correcting this example gives us:

“What I’m trying to say is that I can’t remember his exact words.”

Read this example, and you see that the “is” connects (or “equates”) the phrase on the left side of it to the phrase on the right side of it.

Here is reader Kyle’s second example:

“The thing is, is that I’m having a hard time remembering his exact words.”

Again, the solution is simple: replace “is, is” with “is”:

“The thing is that I’m having a hard time remembering his exact words.”

Solution:
Avoid the dreaded double “is” by replacing “… is, is …” with “… is …”.

Thanks, Kyle, for this excellent submission of what, unfortunately, is becoming yet another common English blunder!

“I want to preface this up front by saying …”

Nouns, Redundancies, Verbs

I heard this yesterday during a conference call.

Problem:
The phrase “up front” introduces a redundancy.

Explanation:
The speaker on the conference call was telling the other call attendees that he wanted to say something before he said something else.

The noun “preface” means a preliminary statement in a book or speech.

So the verb “preface” means to provide a preliminary statement.

And therefore following the verb “preface” with the phrase “up front” introduces a redundancy.

Solution:
“I want to preface this by saying …”

“… obtained verbally, in writing, or electronically.”

Adjectives, Adverbs, Common English Blunders, Redundancies

I saw this in a course for customer-service representatives.

Problem:
The list of adverbs contains redundancies.

Explanation:
The expression was part of legal counsel in a company’s course for its customer-service representatives:

“Permission [from the customer] can be obtained verbally, in writing, or electronically.”

Unfortunately, it has become a common English blunder to use the adverb “verbally” when people mean “orally” instead.

The adjective “verbal” refers to both oral communication and written communication.

But many people shy away from “oral” or “orally” when referring to spoken communication and instead use “verbal” or “verbally”, respectively. This is a mistake.

The second problem in the expression is that “in writing” refers to both paper-based communication and electronic communication.

So “in writing” overlaps “electronically” in the problematic expression.

The solution comes from recognizing that “verbally” should be replaced with the clearer adverb “orally” and that “in writing” should be replaced with the clearer “on paper”.

Solution:
“… obtained orally, on paper, or electronically.”
OR
“… obtained by telephone, by mail, or by email.”