- By Jim Evans
- Entertainment
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Smart Talk SMART TALK By Dr. Molto Breve
HOUND DOG: The Institute for the Linguistically Impaired often holds weekend clinics at Warriner House. A recent patient pointed this out this redundancy to us and thereby earned a gift certificate for her next visit.
Degrees of redundancy seem as silly as degrees of pregnancy, but it's tempting to say that hound dog is even more redundant than tuna fish. Tuna alone tells us we're considering a kind of fish, which is why the canners find it unnecessary to use the word fish on their labels.
But hound can serve as a generic term for dog. Tuna's not generic. Hound actually comes from the generic German word for dog.
We often use redundancies for endearment, such as puppy dog and kitty cat, or even hound dog, but when we say hound, nobody thinks we're talking about a fish.
In language as in other fields of endeavor, simpler is better. Using redundancies is like armor plating rocks.
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