Page 9 - The Gluckman Occasional Number Five

Casebook of the Language Police:

1. Egregious Pleonasm

Yet another feature of the decline of natural language is the cancerous
growth (or neoplasm, a serendipitous anagram) of pleonasm. What has
been lost? Why should nouns need propping up with superfluous
modifiers? Pernicious solecism or linguistic evolution? One can only
conclude that the lesser-educated among us (the majority, now) feel
uneasy about the power of simple words, that the latter require some
additional force to make them emphatically real or officially
sanctioned. Hearing them uttered by those in authority (i.e., in the
broadcast media), however, is disheartening—as well as an occasion for
bitter laughter. Some recent cases overheard:

negotiating process
snow activity
disaster situation
accounting purposes
court system
first-come, first-serve basis
lower back area
interim period
westerly direction
economic structure
recovery phase
for sports use
least amount of money (also, of course, most amount)
sales event
food items
knuckleball type pitcher
benefits package
a whole plethora
contoured style bug shield
locking device
oil resource
purchasing experience