This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Working Title: The Tropy Trope of Tropiness: From YKTTW
I second the suggestion that this section be renamed to Kill You To Death.
arromdee: Umm... some examples are just sentences that are analyzed too literally. "It ain't over until it's over" means something like "it shouldn't be treated like being over until it's actually over"—in other words, the word "over" is being used with slightly different shades of meaning. Likewise for "the past is over".
I'm inclined to suggest removing all real-life examples.
Doug S. Machina: Final Destination doesn't really fit, as it refered to the flight the characters missed, whose "final destination" was Paris, but would stopover somewhere on the way. Makes no sense with the other films though, so I'm not sure if it should go.
Micah: Removed
- Technically, The Prisoner's Opening Monologue has one: "By hook or by crook we will." Hook is archaic slang for a pickpocket.
This may be true, but 1) "by hook or by crook" is a standard enough phrase at this point that it doesn't make sense to analyze individual bits of it, and 2) none of the possible explanations I've seen for its origin have anything to do with crime.
bluepenguin: The Queensryche example in Music seems more like Buffy Speak to me. It's definitely not a tautology, at least.
alliterator: I removed the Monty Python parrot speech, since that's more of a Hurricane of Euphemisms.
arromdee: Removed all remarks by political figures; they're a trouble magnet and it's easy to misread a remark by a political figure you don't like. Also, some of them are repetitions used for emphasis, are words used with different shades of meaning as I mention above, or are jusr cases of someone repeating words when speaking impromptu.
alliterator: I removed this:
- "The most valuable and useful of all talents and abilities is that of never using two words or descriptions when one will do or suffice."
—> - Dr. Squid
Darmok: To your first point, I did look, and all websites that use the quote attribute it to a "Dr. Squid". But even still, There Is No Such Thing As Notability.
To your second point, yes it describes a tautology. It even goes to the effort of saying they are unnecessary. But in doing so, no less than four tautologies are used in a single sentence. It describes itself self-referentially.
Darmok (2 weeks later): If there are no objections, I'm leaning towards putting it back in because it's perfectly justified. I don't particularly want to start an edit war though.
arromdee:
- The title of the series Unsolved Mysteries — well, if they were solved, they wouldn't be mysteries.
Umm, we can talk about solving a mystery. An unsolved mystery is one which is currently unsolved, and a solved mystery is something which was mysterious in the past.
- It should also be noted that "It ain't over till it's over" is more true of baseball than any other major American sport; there's no timer, so until that very - last - out, the game isn't over.
It certainly isn't going to be over before the very last out. Of course, the real reason why this doesn't belong is what I explained before: "over" is being used in two different ways (it shouldn't be treated as if it's over until it's really over).
- This Troper's mother once said "If You're going to eavesdrop, listen!"
"If you're going to hear the words, pay attention to their meaning".
I'm not even going to bother listing all of the ones in the page. This is getting ridiculous; a lot of these are tautologies only to the very literal-minded who can't read nuances of language.
Blork:Removed
- All the Final Destination movies except for the first one (where it was used correctly, in that it referred to a plane having to stop somewhere before its final destination).
Haven: Removed this, because the point was made~
AND "She's on a bus to New Jersey — she's headed to the town of Princeton."
- Right, because Princeton is the only town in New jersey
- No, but if you are going to Princeton then you must be going to New Jersey making the first clause redundant.
There seems to be some confusion between this and Department of Redundancy Department. —Document N
puritybrown: The Yahtzee example is a chiasmus, not a pleonasm. If somebody can think of a non-pretentious way of expressing that, it should be edited to reflect this fact.
Cheat-master30: What the heck is with the categories? Japanese anime? Western Animation Cartoons? Electronic Videogames? Is this the Department of Redundancy Department?
- Slave: No, this isn't the Department of Redundancy Department which you're looking for, you want the Department of Redundancy Department.
Some of the examples are an example of RAS Syndrome, (see other wiki article) like navy ncis. mabye we should make a page for RAS Syndrome.
Furry Kef: I removed this under the bit that discusses the term "Japanese Anime":
"To be fair, anime IS a French word, even the Japanese themselves only use it some of the time, and rarely refer to anime as "anime" Secondly, anime has not yet come into wide enough usage as a term for the medium, many referred to it as Japanimation more than anime."
Actually, the term "anime" does not derive from French. Yes, "anime" is a French word, but the Japanese word is entirely unrelated. The Japanese simply abbreviated "animeeshon" because it's too long; the Japanese do this all the time (e.g., Family Computer -> Famicom).
The other point is more debatable, but the whole thing is natter anyway, so might as well remove all of it.
L Guardinal: Sorry, I'm confused; how, exactly, is this different from Department of Redundancy Department?
Blork: Department of Redundancy Department is where the same item appears in a list multiple times, this is where something is described using unnecessary redundant words that form tautologies, and Department of Redundancy Department is where the same item appears in a list multiple times.
John Z: As a side note, I found this to be particularly hilarious:
- Yuko: A Mokona's a Mokona. You count them one Mokona, two Mokona then you stop because there's only two Mokona.
