Vivly: Free gifts Were gifts meant to paid for?

Vivly: Free gifts Were gifts meant to paid for?

Vivly: Free gifts Were gifts meant to be paid for?

Vivly: Unique individual. All individuals are unique. They're individuals.

if you've seen one, you've seen them all. Actually, if you've seen one, you've seen one. If you've seen all, you've seen all.

Young boy Are there old boys?

Frozen ice Please, tell me why it's called ice

Donalð Genes: Notice this, some Nairalanders perhaps are fond of using this catch phrase especially the yorubas and Igbos during their e-fighting,name-calling and bashing of one another in the political section nine out of ten

''40,killed by Boko Haram attack, and some few army soldiers as well''

Now, can you spot the grammatical gaffe within the context of the above example?

Vivly: Ok. I've noticed a few tautologies commonly used here and I'm gonna post them. Feel free to post those you've noticed too.
First, a grammatical tautology is when you repeat an idea within a particular sentence or phrase, giving the impression you are providing additional information.. For example, she woke up at 4.am in the morning. Am signifies morning, why bother?
Here we go
1.Very beginning. The word very is redundant in the phrase

2.Small minority Politics section, A place is regarded as minority because it's small.

3. Personal belongings. All belongings are personal, unless they've been stolen from a public place

4.PIN number Please don't ask anybody for their pin and still say number. The initial 'n' in the acronym PIN stands for number.

5.Honest truth A truth is either true or it isn't. Unless it's a politician speaking.

6.Past experiences All experiences are past. All those thread starters saying 'please share your past experience', take note.

7.Old adage Please, there's a reason it's called adage and it's because it's old

jamael:
check or grammar before u post.
check or grammar before u post.

oche_ejemb:

Most of your so called corrections are misinformed. These are adjectives used to further qualify nouns, or simply commonly used idiomatic or colloquial English expressions.

From the very beginning is a commonly used English expression to show its from the "from the exact point when something starts". So for example, if you say "I started doing it at the beginning of the year", then you could mean anytime in January up till March possibly. However, "I started at the very beginning of the year" suggests that you started on Day 1 of the year.

Small Minority: Again, this may be right usage. If 1 million people make up a minority, is this still a 'small' minority, e.g Africans within the UK or US can be considered a minority. Are they small in size? However, Africans who worship Sango in the UK, or who commit crimes and give everyone else a bad name. These are examples of small minority when compared with the entire population.

Personal belongings: Can multiple people not share ownership of an item, or can an individual not make use of items which don't actually belong to them? I am using a computer which belongs to me (kind of), but I do not own it as it was purchased by my employers, but was given to me to work with. It is my computer, but It's not my personal belonging.

Honest truth: This is an idiom, an expression. Yes the truth should always be honest, but we are humans. e.g "The truth is that I was in class today", "The honest truth is that I was in class today but I wasn't paying attention".

Past experience: Experiences can occur in real time. Past experience suggests a considerable amount of time has passed between you having the experience (it didn't happen yesterday or this morning, or just now).

Old adage: 'Poo happens' is an adage. Is it old?

naijaguy77:

Sorry but you are wrong on several counts. Language is about context, and English is no different.

1) Very Beginning is CORRECT. The beginning is not always a definite point, it can be a collection of points or time frame. For instance, the beginning of a concerto movement in classical music can be the a collection of sounds, but the "very beginning" will be the instant the music begins. An example of use of this phrase is in the film Sound Of Music - "Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. When you read you begin with A B C, when you sing you begin with DOH REY MI". You are not more English than Julie Andrews or those who wrote that classic english song.

2) Small Minority is CORRECT. Again, it is about context. A "small minority" is a subset of a "minority". That is to say, if you have a minority e.g. the Republicans in the US Senate trying to repeal Obama care, you can have a "small minority" within that group, who are vocal and intolerant, e.g. the Tea Party movement within the republican party. This also applies to Majority and Small Majority - in a parliamentary system of government, the political parties put together a coalition of a "small majority" and the opposition can lose out of leadership by a "small minority".

6) Past Experiences is absolutely correct. Again, it is about context. Some experiences are recent - recent experiences, some even as recent as today or 30 minutes ago. In comparison, older experiences of similar events would be termed 'past experiences'. E.g. If i was narrating my experience this morning with MTN customer care to a friend, and comparing it with my experience last year with mtn customer care, it would be 100% correct to refer to the former as my "recent experience" and the latter as my "past experience"

7) Old Adage is 100% correct. This one has nothing little to do with context. The word Adage is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "A proverb or short statement expressing a general truth." Nothing to do with how old the proverb or statement is. It may have been coined yesterday. So 'Old Adage' is an adage that is quite old, simple.

I shall leave it at this. Just remember, the English Language is a living Language, it keeps on changing. So quit quibbling over semantics and concern yourself with syntax.

oche_ejemb:

Most of your so called corrections are misinformed. These are adjectives used to further qualify nouns, or simply commonly used idiomatic or colloquial English expressions.

From the very beginning is a commonly used English expression to show its from the "from the exact point when something starts". So for example, if you say "I started doing it at the beginning of the year", then you could mean anytime in January up till March possibly. However, "I started at the very beginning of the year" suggests that you started on Day 1 of the year.

Small Minority: Again, this may be right usage. If 1 million people make up a minority, is this still a 'small' minority, e.g Africans within the UK or US can be considered a minority. Are they small in size? However, Africans who worship Sango in the UK, or who commit crimes and give everyone else a bad name. These are examples of small minority when compared with the entire population.

Personal belongings: Can multiple people not share ownership of an item, or can an individual not make use of items which don't actually belong to them? I am using a computer which belongs to me (kind of), but I do not own it as it was purchased by my employers, but was given to me to work with. It is my computer, but It's not my personal belonging.

Honest truth: This is an idiom, an expression. Yes the truth should always be honest, but we are humans. e.g "The truth is that I was in class today", "The honest truth is that I was in class today but I wasn't paying attention".

Past experience: Experiences can occur in real time. Past experience suggests a considerable amount of time has passed between you having the experience (it didn't happen yesterday or this morning, or just now).

Old adage: 'Poo happens' is an adage. Is it old?

eddiebruk:

Well, you should check yours as well, it is "your" not " or".

Vivly: 8.Live recording. Damn. All recordings are live. Music and celebrity section please.

9.Safe haven. Literature gurus, Is there such thing as unsafe haven? Havens are by their definitions safe places.

10.First time ever. It's either your first time or it isn't. Decide!

11.General public. This is the most common. All those news being addressed to the general public, unless you're treating certain members of the public as special, all members of the public are general.

12.In one way or another. If it's not true in one way, then it's not freaking true. How can something be true in both ways?

13.Exact same/ exactly the same. The word exact is redundant in this phrase

Yomieluv: short knickers,Night Vigils,I would rather kill myself than commit suicide etc.

Vivly:
In my opinion, i think that This is only used by the insufferable know it all's

Add yours

naijaguy77:

I shall leave it at this. Just remember, the English Language is a living Language, it keeps on changing. So quit quibbling over semantics and concern yourself with syntax.

Malakh: why una dey wahala una self for another man language, if u understand what i'm saying then we have communicated, that is what we use language for

Dannylux: Interesting.. This is exactly why I wanna marry Vivly.

Vivly: [b]You all trying to dispute the facts based on claims that some of the adverbs were used for emphasis should try to check the dictionary meaning of the words. Why the unnecessary repitition? [/b].

oche_ejemb:

In my opinion, I think that it is ludicrous for you accuse anyone of being a know-it-all.
Even more ludicrous, is that you consider someone politely expressing their opinion as bad English

A-ZeD:

You are the one who is wrong here. Context, Figure of speech all play a role in a sentence e.g the sentence 'if you've seen one of the Johnson boys, you've seen them all' is not tautology but a figure of speech to connote that the Johnson boys look alike.

Preciousone4ril: Quickquick
smalllsmall
fastfast
slowslow
sharpsharp and so on and so on