[Adrian Fry]

The more I read of these redundancies, the more inclined I am to forgive them. Some add colour to a sentence, others merely enable rhythm. Like errant apostrophes, they will drive us mad if we don't forgive their existence.

[Jayne Osborn]

It's too late, Adrian. I've already gone off my rocker due to errant apostrophes.

Jayne

[Gail White]

I agree. In some of the redundancies mentioned, the repeat is merely an intensifier -- There is some additional horror in the statement "He drowned in his own blood".

[Brian Allgar]

But perhaps even more horror in the statement "He drowned in his children's blood." I wish I hadn't thought of that.

[Max Goodman]

They are both the same.

or, as some of my students would be inclined to put it: Both of the two of them are exactly the same.

(Now that I think of it, this illustrates why these redundancies are worth pointing out. There's nothing particularly egregious in the first one. It can, as some have said about other redundancies, be preferable in some contexts to the more succinct version, but it may show the writer hasn't stopped to consider the words, which can lead to writing like the second example.)

[Roger Slater]

One thing that no one in the thread has closely examined [wait, is that a redundancy? aren't all examinations close?] is what precisely is the problem with redundancy? Are we just trying to work within the 140-character limit of Twitter? How exactly does a redundancy affect our ability to communicate? Rather than starting with the premise that redundancy is a bad thing, shouldn't we ask why? And if we do, I believe that we will find that the reasons don't apply to each and every [wait, is that redundant? why not just say "each" or just say "every"?] instance of redundancy.

[Brian Allgar]

Bob, I gave your post a cursory examination, and I think my answer is "No". Or maybe "Yes".

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

what precisely is the problem with redundancy?

At the risk of being redundant (both of my last two posts, including this present one, are exactly the same (and, yes, I went out of my way to make that as intentionally redundant as I could possibly make it--on purpose)):

While in many cases there is no problem, being vigilant about redundancy requires us to think about our words; pointing out redundancies encourages (and in some cases might help) others do the same.