Tag Archives: redundancy

The Flavor of Oreos

Posted by Piscis on

Redundeos

 

Nabisco has been going crazy with their (often terrible) new Oreo flavors over the last few years, but the package that I picked up the other day seems to indicate that they’ve finally gone off the deep end: “Cookies & Creme” flavored Oreos.

Let that sink in for a minute.

When something is “cookies and creme” flavored, you know what that really means is Oreo-flavored-please-don’t-sue-us.  So what does that make these?

Oreo-flavored Oreos.

Nabisco is straight-facedly selling Oreos whose special flavor is Oreos.  They’re not even trying to hide it – for God’s sake, there’s a full-on Oreo in the background picture of what the flavor is supposed to represent.

Do you want to guess what these things taste like?

Did you guess Oreos?  Because it’s Oreos.  Oreo-flavored Oreos taste like Oreos.

Bang-up job, planet Earth.

 

Bene edite.

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Wednesday Writing Word: Tautology

Posted by Piscis on
Tautology

/tɔˈtɒlədʒi/  |  taw-TAW-luh-jee

 

Tautology is a multifaceted concept.  In most cases, it refers to something contextually uninformative.  This can be as simple as a redundant word or phrase (“He burnt his hand in hot fire.”, “Julie the bachelorette arrived last, without a husband.”), but in what I’d call its most interesting form, a tautology is an entire assertion that is rendered intrinsically meaningless strictly because it is inherently true.

With so many ways to convey information in language, there is just something I find almost artfully ridiculous in the construction of a syntactically and semantically sound statement which nevertheless effectively communicates nothing under any interpretation.

 

Examples:

  • The stupid things that the slog does are all stupid.
  • The slog is precisely as terrible as it is.
  • Either I’ll defeat the slog, or I won’t.

 

Tautology.  (Don’t?) use it.

 

Bene scribete.