Q. Recently I heard someone talking
about “baby puppies” in relationship to writing—and how we
shouldn't use them. I have no idea what they were talking about. Can
you enlighten me?
A - “Baby
puppies” is simply referring to the use of two words that actually
say the same thing. The official name usually given to such instances
is “tautology.” The reference to “baby puppies” is an example
of a tautology since a puppy by definition is a baby, baby is not
necessary. A few other examples would be annual birthday, blended
together, cancel out, cash money, broken shards, close proximity,
correspond back and forth, dead corpse, equal to one another, filled
to capacity, free gift, kneel down, revert back, true facts, written
down, and totally abolished. You might want to edit your own work to
catch any such baby puppies, and then start your own list of them
that you find in your writing or in the writing of others.
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