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.