388. Why Not “Could Potentially”

The image above will bring you to the Conventions of Composition rule about repetition. It's about redundancy and how to avoid it. If you read the rule, you'll learn about why not to repeat yourself. The site provides a lesson in not saying the same thing more than once.

I hope you see what I did there. If you don't, maybe you can stop reading this post now and find something more up your alley, like scrolling TikTok for the next ten hours.

If you got the joke (such as it was) and are still here, you, like me, probably care about language. (Or you're related to me or a dear friend who feels obliged to read every word I write. Either way, I'm grateful to you.)

Sometimes, my students think that the only kind of repetition that's objectionable in writing is using the same word several times in near proximity. Yes, that kind mars the writing, but it's certainly not the only waste of a reader's time. Here are three common redundancies that I'd happily never see again:

• could potentially: these two mean the same thing!
• and yet: while "and" and "yet" don't mean the same thing, we never need both in together, as "yet" does the job by itself.
• ATM machine: I think this is the most common of the initialisms for which lots of people repeat one of the words already accounted for

What are the repeats that irk your ears? Please share any ideas in the comments so that we can be annoyed by them together.