Self-negation

“I’ll relate it back to …”

Adverbs, Common English Blunders, Self-negation

I heard this a few days ago in a conference call.

Problem:
The adverb “back” in “relate it back” is redundant.

Explanation:
A man promised on the conference call to send some information to a woman who also was on the conference call.

In turn, the woman on the call began a sentence with “I’ll relate it back to …” so as to indicate that she would take the information — the “it” in the sentence — and connect it to something else.

The “re” in “relate” means back.

Therefore, one could argue that “relating back” would never establish the connection.

I believe that the growing tendency, at least in American English, to add words such as “back” after many verbs reflects a growing ignorance about the meanings of the roots of English words.

Solution:
“I’ll relate it to …”

“… put our thinking gaps on …”

Nouns, Self-negation

I saw this in an email message a few days ago.

Problem:
The noun is incorrect.

Explanation:
The complete sentence was “We all need to put our thinking gaps on and come up with some thoughts on how we can bend the curve.”

The message writer was asking readers to think of ideas that could change the shape of a trend line.

The correct noun to follow “thinking” is “caps” — spelled C-A-P-S — not “gaps” — spelled G-A-P-S.

The message writer created a self-negation with his error with just one letter in just one word, given that a “thinking gap” (with a “g”) is effectively the opposite of a “thinking cap” (with a “c”).

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following combinations (with the quotation marks) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

  • “thinking caps on” — 128,000 matches
  • “thinking gaps on” — 4 matches

This tells me that Web authors have very rarely made the mistake that the email message writer made.

Solution:
“… put our thinking caps on …”

“return back”

Adverbs, Common English Blunders, Self-negation, Verbs

I heard this on television yesterday.

Problem:
The adverb “back” in “return back” is redundant.

Explanation:
The verb “return” means to go back, so the meaning of “return back” would be to go back back.

Because the “re” in “return” means back, one could argue that someone who “returns back” would never reach the intended destination.

For fun, I searched Google for the expression “return back” (with the quotation marks) and got about 2,490,000 matches. This is depressing.

Solution:
“return”