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ImageSMART TALK
by Dr. Weiss N. Heimer

CLOSE PROXIMITY:  This is like saying dark blackness.  We ask patients, "Would you say far proximity?"  But sometimes we need redundancy, as in a family vacation story.  (By the way, isn't "family vacation" an oxymoron?)  A triple redundancy, cooped up in close proximity, may be the only way to adequately describe those hours in the car.

We don't cover this at the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired, however.  It would confuse our patients.  But we certainly have fun with it in private.  Therapists enjoy letting off steam in the Fowler Lounge by stringing redundancies as long as possible.  Densely cooped up in close proximity near each other, adjacently, for instance.

Usually, though, close proximity is used by the same pitiable folks who say period of time.  Both phrases make them sound fatuous.  They should say proximity and time or period.  Period.

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