My favorite superfluous repetitious redundant duplicative phrase is:

[chacham]

From whence

 31/12%

Absolutely certain

 32/12%

Postpone until later

 32/12%

ATM machine

 41/16%

PIN number

 61/23%

Each and every

 21/8%

Reason why

 19/7%

Join together

 24/9%

261 total votes

[Athanasius]

• Mount Fujiyama
• added bonus
• LCD display
• unexpected surprise
• actual fact

But the prize has to go to Yogi Berra and his Yogiisms:

• We made too many wrong mistakes.
• The game isn’t over until it’s over.
• You can observe a lot by watching.
• I always thought that record would stand until it was broken.
• (When asked if first baseman Don Mattingly had exceeded his expectations this season:)
  I’d say he’s done more than that.
• It’s déjà vu all over again.

:-)

[Athanasius]

Heard just now on the Australian television coverage of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games (at a medal ceremony):

They always start with the bronze medal presentation first.

:-)

[chacham]

Perhaps they meant to do something not yet done at a bronze medal presentation. That'd make it a bronze medal presentation first. :)

[johngg]

I voted "PIN number" - then again, if it was correctly termed "PI Number" everyone would enter 3.14159... and then wonder why they could never get any money from the hole-in-the-wall machine :-/

[tobyink]

See also: RAS Syndrome.

[Bethany]

Shouldn't that be "My very favorite superfluous etc."?

:-}

[blue_cowdawg]

Department of Redundancy Department.

[kcott]

A definition list (<dl>) of definition terms (<dt>) with definition definitions (<dd>) containing a "superfluous repetitious redundant duplicative phrase" might start with:

AGM

A yearly event that is scheduled every twelve months, annually.

[mr_mischief]

I totally and completely would have voted for and chosen "superfluous repetitious redundant duplicative" had it been available and on the poll for me to choose and vote for.

[syphilis]

My favourite is "very unique", followed closely by "completely full".

Cheers,
Rob

[chacham]

very unique

The colloquial use of "unique" is a quality, that it is special within its group and should be treated as special. One out of three is not very special, yet one out of a million is. Hence, while both are unique, the latter is more unique.

Another example: Someone may say "so-and-so is unique", just to be answered with, "but how unique is he?". The answer to that is a comparative value, which just may be "he is very unique".

[syphilis]

Heh ... that sent me scurrying to my "Concise Oxford Dictionary". Even back when it was published (early nineties) it seems they were making an allowance for degrees of uniqueness:

2 disp. unusual, remarkable (the most unique man)

Just another example of how braindead usage can alter the meaning(s) of a word ... but at least it validates your assertion.

I'm reminded of the notion that some infinities are larger than others:
There's an infinite number of reals in the range 1..2.
There's an infinite number of reals in the range 1..3.
But there's clearly more reals in the range 1..3 than in the range 1..2 (because all of the reals in the latter also belong to the former, but not vice-versa). Therefore the infinite number of reals in the range 1..3 is greater than the infinite number of reals in the range 1..2.

If we can get people to start talking in terms of degrees of infiniteness then we'll eventually see that in the Oxford Dictionary, too, no doubt.

Anyway ... for mine something is either unique or it's not unique.

Cheers,
Rob

[mr_mischief]

A degree of uniqueness is colloquial, but what about axes of uniqueness? A purple human might be unique as might a green one. A human with 21 toes would probably be unique. Surely a single ever green person otherwise normal would be as unique as before if along came a single ever purple human who also had alone in history 21 toes. These are notable differences from everyone else. In conversation, though, how incorrect would it be to call one more unique than the other?

Also, there is the idea of uniqueness within a given set. You might be the only computer programmer in your household. For that set of people in your household, that single trait could be unique. On Perlmonks, being a programmer is not unique. Your account here is unique, but the same username might be used on some other site you or by someone else. Yet nobody else in the world has all the same traits as you.

You're unique among all humanity, just like the rest of us. ;-)

[Anonymous Monk]

"new and improved" not redundant just impossible.

[salva]

\w+P protocol

[wjw]

My actual favorite is "de-thaw", which is amazingly common, means the exact opposite of what is intended, and implies a rather nuanced redundancy...

[chacham]

George Carlin's skit on near miss seems somewhat similar.

[GotToBTru]

Related: favorite quote from a sportscaster (Yogi Berra would be proud). "There's been a lot of give and take, and vice versa."

[dbuckhal]

Are we that far gone from the days of the FAT table???

[Pope-O-Matik]

Didn't FAT have inherent redundancy in the form of mirrored tables?

[Tux]

This disk has a NTFS File System, and I'd like to format it with a XFS File System. I think I can connect it on the USB Bus.

[chacham]

The a should be an. Then you get what sounds like even more redundancy, "an N". :)

[ChuckularOne]

VIN Number was also missing. That one drives me as nuts an PIN Number.

[chacham]

Should the option should have been "*IN Number"? :)

[hdb]

Most optimal...

[Bloodnok]

Not sure it's favourite, but I always thought that, in the context of future ways of working, 'going forwards' is one of the most annoying.

[chacham]

going forward

Isn't the term the non-redundant "moving forward?"

[Bloodnok]

I don't believe it is a non-redundant term since, as far as ways of working/lessons learned etc., are concerned, there can be no going back - hence going forward is redundancy from this PoV.

[cdarke]

Question: is "Perl language" one of these?

(Sometimes its like throwing bait into a tub of piranhas)

[trippledubs]

NIC card

[HDTVJohn]

Join Together, a rockin', but superflous, repetitious and redundant "Who" tune, complete with some unorthodox instruments!

[chacham]

Just came across circumambulate round the centre in Psychology_and_Alchemy which was originally published in German. I wonder if it was from the German, and if so, if it is not redundant there.

update: 6/30 corrected quote

[chacham]

Wow, just caught myself trying to type MDI interface.

[pvaldes]

woof, woof, woof, bark, bark, bark, growl, growl, growl