Tautologies: Logical, Linguistic, and George W. Bush
A logical tautology is a statement that is true by definition, or, as the dictionary puts it, "a statement true by virtue of its logical form alone." For example, in the tautologous cliche department:
Wherever you go, there you are.
What will be, will be.
The dictionary has another definition for tautology, sometimes called a linguistic tautology: "Needless repetition of an idea, statement, or word." This kind of tautology can be used rhetorically as a figure of speech to emphasize a concept (it is related to a pleonasm). More often, linguistic tautologies are basically pathetic and silly (or at least unconcise and poor use of language). For example:
Past history
Planning ahead
Main crux
True fact
HTML Language
Sierra Nevada Mountains (snowy mountains mountains)
Here are some of President George W. Bush's tautologic utterances:
"It's very important for folks to understand that when there's more trade, there's more commerce." —George W. Bush, at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, April 21, 2001
"If affirmative action means what I just described, what I'm for, then I'm for it." —George W. Bush, during the third presidential debate, St. Louis, Mo., October 18, 2000
". . . the past is over." —George W. Bush, after making up with John McCain, Dallas Morning News, May 10, 2000
(Thanks to Language Log for the Bush tautologies.)
Posted by Harold Davis at April 28, 2005 04:55 PM
