The Last of All Redundant Essays

The Most Redundant Words to Delete From Your Writing Advice on extraneous words from the Random House copy chief

The consensus of opinion these days seems to be that redundancy in writing is bad. While it may be the general consensus it is not an absolute certainty that this is the case. In fact it might possibly be the case that redundancies are more superior to other methods of emphasis when it comes to getting and keeping your readers attention, despite what Random House copy chief Benjamin Dreyer says in the above linked piece.

The Reasons Why

If past history is any guide then what I am about to say will fall on deaf ears. Therefore I give this advance warning, in this task I may not succeed. This is not intended to be a fiction novel in which myself as the main protagonist travels to Mount Fujiyama with a lesbian woman to gather together the parts of some legendary Macguffin. Rather it is meant as a serious rejoinder to the members of the anti-redundancy brigade led by men like Benjamin Dreyer who erupt violently at even the hint of redundancy in any form of writing. It is these exact same men who shudder at the thought of a misplaced oxford comma or vague pronoun reference.

There can be little doubt that this is a crisis situation, and action by the community of writers is warranted. However, we cannot choose the route of direct confrontation and the reason why is simple, for if we do the end result will surely be failure. Instead we should merge together in mutual cooperation from 8 p.m. in the evening everynight until 8 o’clock a.m. in the morning each day, from twelve midnight ’til twelve noon. My fellow countryman and dear readers, it is absolutely certain that if we do not rise up together we will fall down alone.

We are all interdependent upon each other and we must fuse together all of our viewpoints lest we each fall down alone

We can no longer avoid joining together and refusing to kneel down down at the altar of our so called God, the chief copy editor’s of America. From whence they came no longer matters, if it ever did. Their power is at it’s low ebb, and I don’t think I overexaggerate when I say they have less import today than your average paparazzi photographer. They find themselves surrounded on all sides by artificial intelligence powered editing software and undergraduate students with machine learning degrees looking to make a name for themselves in the ever expanding and white hot copy editing job market. Therefore it should be no unexpected surprise that now is the moment in time we must choose to strike. Mr. Dreyer implied, without quite saying, that he would apply the full gamut of his powers as chief copywrite editor to stop this plague of redundancies. I say Mr. Dreyer wears assless chaps and his penis is short in length, and his own personal opinion is nothing but a passing fad.

So I present this piece to you as a free gift, and as an added bonus, I give you the exact same final outcome you would have gotten if you had never read this post, which is nothing. I give you a passing fad, a hollow tube, nothing more, nothing less.

Author's disclaimer: Publication of my works on Vocal.media do not represent in any way an endorsement of their outrageous and unjust censorship policies. I do not support those policies and in fact find them absurd, abhorrent, and an affront to free societies everywhere. Thank you for reading my works here, but know they are published under conditions in which freedom of expression is being muzzled. Therefore, any works of mine you read in these pages will not reflect the full range of my interests and certain topics will be by necessity greatly minimized or entirely absent. Please accept my sincere apologies on behalf of the editors and moderators of Vocal. Since they won't do it for themselves I will do it for them. You can read my original post explaining my position here.