A few days ago I came across an example of it in The Times of India:
A mock drill was conducted at New Delhi railway station on Wednesday to check the preparedness of various agencies in responding to emergency situations.
A drill is an exercise, not a real emergency; mock means the same thing, so there is no need to add it.
Here are some more instances:
- past experience
- major disaster
- repeat again
- free gift
I can see some reasons for the evolution of such phrases:
ReplyDelete1. Differentiation
(a) consider that there are many sorts of experiences - recent, immediate, past ...
(b) disasters vary: major disaster (tsunami), minor disaster (our neighborhood flooded)
2. Emphasis
Some languages use little words to show emphasis, "iku ze" [Japanese] "look, I'm leaving!" [English].
Saying "repeat again" is away of saying "Look! I am repeating myself".
Language is more than the logic of the "actual" meanings of the words -- words have many functions outside of meaning: tone, allusions, sounds and more.
So, could you imagine ways "mock drill" could evolve to be more than just a silly tautology? I can.
Like you, I love language. Nice to meet you.
Sabio, thanks for your comments and nice to meet you too :-)
DeleteI understand what you mean by differentiation and your examples do make sense. Nevertheless, "experience" is usually good enough; one need not say "past experience". Or perhaps "early experience" can be used instead.
However I don't agree that such phrases are a way of showing emphasis.
Coming to "mock drill", how is this different from "drill"?
another example:
ReplyDelete"repeat again" could mean:
I repeated myself 10 minutes ago and I am again going to repeat myself.
Concerning drills, consider:
practice drill
mock drill
rehearsal drill
All are tautology, but perhaps it is like "really, really good" -- redundancy for emphasis.
Point: language events evolve for reasons -- not just from pure stupidity. To not understand that, is to not understand language.