redundancy

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email
Top
(rĭ-dŭn'dən-sē) pronunciation
n., pl., -cies.
  1. The state of being redundant.
  2. Something redundant or excessive; a superfluity.
  3. Repetition of linguistic information inherent in the structure of a language, as singularity in the sentence It works.
  4. Excessive wordiness or repetition in expression.
  5. Chiefly British.
    1. The state or fact of being unemployed because work is no longer offered or considered necessary.
    2. A dismissal of an employee from work for being no longer necessary; a layoff.
  6. Electronics. Duplication or repetition of elements in electronic equipment to provide alternative functional channels in case of failure.
  7. Repetition of parts or all of a message to circumvent transmission errors.

USAGE NOTE   The usages that critics have condemned as redundancies fall into several classes. Some expressions, such as old adage, mental telepathy, and VAT tax have become fixed expressions and seem harmless enough. In some cases, such as consensus of opinion, hollow tube, and refer back, the use of what is regarded as an unnecessary modifier or qualifier can sometimes be justified on the grounds that it in fact makes a semantic contribution. Thus a hollow tube can be distinguished from one that has been blocked up with deposits, and a consensus of opinion can be distinguished from a consensus of judgments or practice. Some locutions, such as close proximity, have been so well established that criticizing them may seem petty. See Usage Notes at rarely, refer.

Our Living Language   Although certain vernacular constructions, such as the double comparative and superlative constructions (as in more higher and most fastest) are scorned as unschooled redundancies, many fundamental features of Standard English, such as subject-verb agreement, also manifest redundancy in their double marking. For example, in She sits on the chair, the -s inflection on sit indicates that the subject of the sentence is a third-person-singular form. However, this information is redundant-it is conveyed by she. Standard English pronoun forms may encode redundancies too. Subject pronouns are nominative, and direct object pronouns are objective (for example, I saw him and He saw me); these distinctive forms are technically not necessary, however, since normal English word order makes evident whether a pronoun refers to a subject or object. Nevertheless, standard practice requires the avoidance of constructions such as double comparatives except when they are employed for rhetorical or comical effect.



'She is lively and vital enough to be a member of a terrorist gang.' 'Lively and vital,' said Harvey, 'lively and vital—one of these words is redundant.'—Muriel Spark, 1984.
English idiom is characterized by redundancy, or apparent redundancy, and it is misguidedly pedantic to pick holes in discourse that includes it. Examples of idiomatic or functional repetition of words or ideas include ATM machine (the M in ATM already means 'machine'), HIV virus (the V in HIV already means 'virus'), the hoi polloi (hoi = 'the'), LCD display (the D in LCD already means 'display'), PIN number (the N in PIN already means 'number'), safe haven (a haven is by definition safe), and armed gunman (a gunman is by definition armed).

Previous:reductio ad absurdum, reducible, recur
Next:refectory, refer, referendum

Having a secondary peripheral, computer system or network device that takes over when the primary unit fails. See fault tolerant, mirroring, RAID, hot standby and backup types.

Download Computer Desktop Encyclopedia to your PC, iPhone or Android.

Intentional or unintentional repetition of computer data. Data files can be compressed by removing redundancy and expressing the same data more concisely, whereas reliability of data transmission can be increased by sending the same data twice.

Previous:Reduction Certificate, Reduced Rate, Redlining
Next:Reengineering, Referee, Referral

Unnecessary repetition in speech or writing. The expression freedom and liberty is redundant.

Random House Word Menu:

categories related to 'redundancy'

Top
Random House Word Menu by Stephen Glazier
For a list of words related to redundancy, see:

  See crossword solutions for the clue Redundancy.
Top

Redundancy may refer to:

Language

  • Redundancy (linguistics), the construction of a phrase that presents some idea using more information, often via multiple means, than is necessary for one to be able to understand the idea
  • Tautology (rhetoric), an unnecessary or unessential (and sometimes unintentional) repetition of meaning, using different and dissimilar words that effectively say the same thing twice (often originally from different languages)
  • Pleonasm, the use of more words or word-parts than is necessary for clear expression, often redundantly
  • Logorrhoea (linguistics), an excessive flow of words more generally

Other uses


Best of Web:

redundancy

Top
Some good "redundancy" pages on the web:

Math
mathworld.wolfram.com

Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community:

Copyrights:

Mentioned in

redundant (technology)
hybrid redundancy (computer science)