I spend a couple of hours every day listening to National Public Radio. (Hey, around here, it’s either NPR or Rush! There’s no great pondering being done over THAT decision!). Today, I listened to a talk show that’s topic was redundancies in language usage. (A redundancy in language is when a person uses two words or a group of words that express the same thing twice.)

The following is a compilation of redundancies that come from the above-mentioned radio show and from my own observations.

Each and every. “I want each and every chair pushed up against the wall.” Each and every. What’s the difference?

Our mutual respect for each other. The respect wouldn’t be mutual if it wasn’t for each other.

Past history. Is there a future history?

My personal opinion. If it’s your opinion, of course it’s personal!

ATM Machine. Do you know what “ATM” stands for? It stands for “Automatic Teller Machine”. So, you needn’t say “machine”. “ATM” is enough. You wouldn’t say, “Automatic Teller Machine Machine”, would you?

The same is true with PIN Number and RAM Memory. “PIN” is an acronym for “Personal Identification Number.” “RAM” is an acronym for “Random Access Memory.”

You hear the next one a lot on commericials – Free gift. “Open a checking account with us today and get a free gift.” Isn’t that what a gift is? Free?? (Although, now that I think of it, some gifts from my mother do come with strings attached!)

Very Unique. If something is unique, there is nothing else like it in the world. So how can something be very unlike anything else in the world? It either is or it isn’t. There are no degrees of uniqueness.

Over and over again. Need I say more?

Same thing with Forever and ever. (Sorry, Jesus.)

Irregardless. It means the exact same thing as regardless. It is so superfluous that many dictionaries don’t even list it.

Inflammable. It means the same thing as “flammable.”

That’s the language lesson today, class. Hey! It’s your language, (It’s the most popular language on the planet and the first one to be considered a world language, I might add!) So, to my way of thinking, it behooves us to use it correctly.

Of course, for some people I know, English is a second language, . . . and they don’t have a first one!