more tautology
“Your acting is completely devoid of emotion.”
Devoid is defined as “completely empty.” Thus, completely devoid is an example of tautology.
Example #2:
“Repeat that again,” and “reiterate again.“
To repeat or reiterate something is to do or say it again.
Example #3: Shout It Out Loud! (By Kiss)
“Shout it, shout it, shout it out loud!”
When a person shouts, it is always aloud.
Example #4: (By Yogi Berra)
“This is like deja vu all over again” (Yogi Berra)
The term déjà vu means to have a feeling of having previously done or experienced something, or to be doing it all over again. “Déjà vu all over again” is an example of tautology.
Example #5: The Wasteland (By T. S. Eliot)
The emphatic function of tautology reveals itself in the example given below:
“To Carthage then I came
Burning burning burning burning.”
Thomas Stern Eliot shows the emphatic function of tautology, using the word “burning” repeatedly in the same line.
Example #6: Hamlet (By William Shakespeare)
In some excerpts, tautology is used intentionally that involves derision inherent in it.
Polonious: “What do you read, my lord?”
Hamlet: “Words, words, words.”
Here Hamlet has used words in order to show that he is lost in words that Polonius is famous in using.
Example #7: The Bells (By Edgar Allen Poe)
“Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme…
From the bells, bells, bells, bells.”
Example #8: The Wasteland (By T. S. Eliot)
“Twit twit twit/ Jug jug jug jug jug jug“
Example #9: The Hollow Men (By T. S. Eliot)
“This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.”
Here, different types of tautologies have been used in a technical way of repetition, which dominates others, such as figures of speech, imitation, and ornamentation. All of above examples might appear in the daily use of language, and also as poetic devices.
Example #10: The Holy Bible (By Various Authors)
Unlike the artistic inspiration built into the preceding types of redundancy, here are a couple of tautology examples with psychological implications. The speakers show the acceptance of their destiny in these types of repetition:
“If I perish, I perish.”
(Esther 4:15)
“If I be bereaved (of my children), I am bereaved.”
(Genesis 43:14)
Function of Tautology
The importance of tautology cannot be denied in modern literary writing. Today, however, writers try to avoid using tautological words and phrases to avoid monotony and repetition. It has almost become a norm to present short and to-the-point language instead of repetitious and redundant phrases.
Despite it being counted as a major style error, several writers commonly use tautology as a powerful tool to emphasize a particular idea, or to draw their readers’ attention to a certain aspect of life. But it is not always taken as a quality of poor grammar; rather it has been taken as a specific rhetorical device.