got (a common one, this. Simply have is fine)
the hoi polloi (as hoi means ‘the’, the is obviously redundant)
hoist up
hurry up
important essentials
in between
inside of
indirect allusion
I saw it with my own eyes (who else’s?)
join together
joint cooperation
just recently
lend out
link together
lonely isolation
meet together
merge together
mix together, mix things together
more preferable
mutual cooperation
necessary requisite
new beginner, new beginning
new creation
new innovation, new invention
original source
other alternative
outside of
over with (for ended, finished)
pair of twins
past history
penetrate into
personal friend
polish up
proceed onward
raze to the ground (raze by itself means exactly that)
really excellent
recall back
reduce down
refer back
relic of the past
renew again
repeat again
revert back
rise up
safe haven
seldom ever
set a new world record
settle up
sink down
still continue
sufficient enough
swallow down
this day and age
totally complete
totally finished
tiny little child
unique means the only one of its kind. You can’t get much more unique than that.
Not even quite unique, absolutely unique and utterly unique
unexpected surprise
unite together
unjustly persecuted
usual habit
very pregnant
viable alternative
warm 75 degrees (of course 75 degrees is warm!)
whether or not
widow woman
There are other forms of repetition, some intentional and some not. Writers have often used it for effect, for example in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:
Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
Or in this equally famous passage from a speech of Winston Churchill’s:
We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
Then there are those instances when, in writing, we manage to box ourselves into a corner with such irritating repetitions as, ‘Her opinion is, is that it will never work’; ‘The dealer admitted he had had the sideboard in his shop for two months’; ‘Not that that would bother her in the least’ and so on.
Finally, take care with double negatives, distant cousins of pleonasm. Although they can be useful they are also often confusing. The bomb attack was not unexpected. If you lived in a terrorist-ridden area, where to be bombed sooner or later would be no great surprise, the double negative not unexpected is better for conveying a suspended kind of expectation than was expected or was no surprise.
The puzzle for many writers is, why is I don’t know nothing about it considered to be unacceptable, while the Prime Minister is not unmindful
