Monday, November 30, 2009

Various Different Things

At last! It's the end of November. I sort of managed to do NaBloPoMo. By sort of, I mean, I sometimes fudged and posted a day late, but back dated my posts.

In its entirety, this was not one of my better NBPM years. My entries were short and sort of mundane. By sort of, I mean, I wrote very little of substance or depth and one day I referred back to something I wrote two years ago.

It is fun to note, however, that my first entry began as a challenge from a colleague who wants to eradicate the use of acronymns and somehow I managed to use an acronym in nearly each post. I missed a few days here and there.

Anyway... Thanks for reading, all four of you faithful readers, you. If you were on Farmville, I'd gift you a lime tree.

*****

Speaking of the title, why do people use this word combination?

Various different things...

I hear this a lot lately and every time I do, it's everything I can do not to look at the person and say, "Are you always this redundant?"

var·i·ous
Pronunciation: \ˈver-ē-əs\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, probably from Medieval Latin *variosus, from Latin varius
Date: 15th century
1 archaic : variable, inconstant
2 : varicolored
3 a : of differing kinds : multifarious b : dissimilar in nature or form : unlike
4 : having a number of different aspects or characteristics
5 : of an indefinite number greater than one
6 :
individual, separate
synonyms see different
var·i·ous·ness noun 


dif·fer·ent
Pronunciation: \ˈdi-fərnt, ˈdi-f(ə-)rənt\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin different-, differens, present participle of differre
Date: 14th century
1 : partly or totally unlike in nature, form, or quality : dissimilar —often followed by from, than, or chiefly British to very different from the captain's tottery characters — R. L. Stevenson> Sir Winston Churchill>
2 : not the same: as a :
distinct b : various c : another TV program>
3 : unusual, special
dif·fer·ent·ness noun

Various and different are synonyms of each other. That means they're virtually the same word. That also means they're interchangeable. That doesn't mean they should be used together. Please stop.

Thank you.

That is all.

Photo source: Google Images.

3 comments:

Gilahi said...

If there's one thing I hate and detest, it's a repeated redundancy, especially when they're used many multiple times. Your posts may have been short, but I don't think they were inconsequentially trivial. You seemed to be posting with vim and vigor.

Sorry. I'll cease and desist now.

Maya said...

Good job Tewksy! Now you can relax...

Anonymous said...

"Various and sundry" is the phrase I used to hear, but don't anymore. But since Gilahi raised the bar, I just merely want to say that I enjoyed your November posts very, very much. I was especially appreciative in a most grateful way that you could come up with unique and eigentartig themes for each and every day.

-Phoebe