In a post last week about Herman Cain, I initially wrote that African-Americans were “staunchly loyal” Democrats. A few hours later, something about that phrase nagged at my brain, so I googled on it to make sure it was sensible. I found countless usages of the phrase, including in many respected outlets.
But just be sure, I looked up staunch in the dictionary. Its primary meaning is “loyal”. The phrase in my post thus meant “loyally loyal”, leading me to edit the post to refer to African-Americans as “staunch Democrats”. May others work to abolish, wipe out and eradicate this redundant phrase.
And while I am at it, you “stanch” not “staunch” bleeding. I have even seen this error on the NYT website. Shame.
Staunch carries connotations or even denotations of firmness, strength, solidity. So it’s not redundant, and it’s more descriptive than just saying “very loyal” (my HS English teacher would have Xed out that “very” anyway). It means they’re going to be loyal even if there other forces trying to push them away.
I disagree. Staunch carries all the meaning of loyal and more; it’s a refinement of loyal. Adding loyal to staunch is really just a hedge that the reader doesn’t know its meaning. This is pedantry and poor writing.
And “it’s” means “it is”, not “of it”-another error I have seen on the NYT web site, as well in this post.
Pedants of the world unite!
Not pedantic at all. That error drives me crazy.
Agree. I see this error more and more frequently; it makes me discount the value of the words that surround it.
Yes and thanks for saying that. I appreciate people helping me write better and to correct my errors, demeaning such kindness as “pedantry” is ungentlemanly and anti-intellectual.
Yes, it’s is an error, and in formal writing it’s a sign of poor education or poor proof-reading. But it’s a perfectly logical error: “John’s” means
“belonging to or characteristic of John,” and “the cat’s” means “of or relating to the cat,” so “its” meaning “of it” is irregular and illogical. In informal un-proofed writing it’s for its is common and doesn’t indicate stupidity or ignorance.
““its” meaning “of it” is irregular and illogical.”
No it isn’t.
That book belongs to him. That is his book.
That CD belongs to her. That CD is hers.
That toy belongs to it. That is its toy.
His. Hers. Its. Perfectly logical, perfectly regular.
Thanks Ed, don’t see how my copy editor missed that — he’s fired.
Other prevalent redundancies are “close proximity” and “shrugged his shoulders.”
I’m shocked that no one has yet mentioned the most superfluous redundancy (nyuk, nyuk)in current usage: “safe haven”.
I guess it’s okay if the president says it.
My dictionary defines “haven” as “1. A harbor or an anchorage; a port. 2. A place of refuge or rest; a sanctuary.” It seems, then, that, if one is using “haven” literally (meaning #1), then “safe haven” would not be redundant, but, if one is using “haven” figuratively (meaning #2), then it would be.
Suppose that a port were being bombed in wartime. One could then say that the haven was not a haven, or that the haven was not safe, but it would be redundant to say that the haven was not a safe haven.
No, I’m wrong. In the preceding example, one could say that the haven was not a safe haven, because one would be referring to the literal haven — the port — while also redundantly referring to it figuratively as a “safe haven.”
From Merriam-Webster:
haven
1:harbor, port
2:a place of safety:refuge
3:a place offering favorable opportunities or conditions
Security, comfort, safety, favorable. I take your point about literal ports, but politicians and their minions are not talking about parking lots for ships when they speak of safe havens. They are referring to refuges. There is no such thing as an unsafe haven in this context.
In the OED entry for the adjective “staunch”, the word “loyal” doesn’t even appear. The relevant sense of staunch is determined, unwavering-words that actually do appear in the OED entry. “Staunchly loyal” can be deprecated as hackneyed, but not as a pleonasm.
Better to have a pleonasm than a neoplasm.
Vindicated (when I wrote that, I had only on old paperback dictionary with no etymologies). Thanks Herschel.
Henry, “proximity” doesn’t precisely mean “closeness”, though obviously they’re …err… close. The phrase “loose proximity” exists in contrast to “close proximity”.
While I agree with you that a shrug, denotatively, is a gesture of the shoulders, there are so many metaphorical uses of shrug that the association is not complete. It’s similar to “blink”, which formally is a gesture of the eyes, but the phrase “blinked her eyes” makes one’s brain neither blink nor shrug.
According to my dictionary, “proximity” does mean “closeness.” What do you think that it means? There are degrees of proximity, but I think that “greater and lesser” is better than “looser and closer.”
I think “loyally staunch” has a nice weird ring to it.
Perhaps efforts like these will stanch the NYT’s shame!
And while I am at it, you “stanch” not “staunch” bleeding. I have even seen this error on the NYT website.
Today’s errors become tomorrow’s correct usage. Evolution in action. That’s the way it works. And perhaps that is the way it should work: If a language has hairline distinctions that demand too/to many synapses to maintain, human beings will cut corners and walk on the grass. Further/Farther more who can blame them? I’m all for nuances in language and a plethora of words, but having to curate endless pissant homophones and picayune homonyms is a bug not a feature. Crikey, the rules for cracking integrals in calculus are fewer and more tidy than the roiling monster of detail that is English grammar. It it any wonder people (even prigs) eventually just throw their hands up and say to/too hell with it:
http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/further-versus-farther.aspx
It’s akin to a portion of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles curiously called “Valley Glen”.
Apart from the problem of redundancy, there’s the larger issue of the use of the word “loyal.” Yes, African Americans have voted overwhelmingly for Democrats over the last half century. But in the second half of the 19th century, they voted equally overwhelmingly for Republicans. I don’t have the numbers immediately at hand, but I don’t believe that any other ethnic group has so radically and throughly transferred its allegiance from one party to the other (although white Southern Baptists may come close). In the broader sweep of U.S. history, what is most remarkable about black voters is not loyalty but their clear-eyed understanding of self-interest and their willingness to let it guide them at the polls, old loyalties be damned.
So you can be “loyal” to a cause without being staunchly loyal. If you are willing to make a small donation to a cause, you can be called “loyal” to that cause, but if you are willing to sacrifice your virginity for it, you are “staunchly loyal.”
Got it.
Oh, and as for staunch vs. stanch. They’re originally the same word ( the verb meaning to stop a flow, the adjective meaning something that doesn’t allow a flow). The OED says that for the verb “stanch is preferred,” but that’s British usage. Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language (college ed. 1980 - I’ve been out of school for a while now) says that “for the verb usage is about evenly divided between “stanch” and “staunch”.”
So, no, the New York Times is not in error when it uses “staunch” as a verb.
Offenses against the English language are one thing. Offenses against other languages by English speakers are another. Maybe it should not bother me when Americans talk of a “weapons ca-SHAY”, or of a “coo de GRAAH”, or of clipping “KEW-pons”, but I admit it does. What can I say? I’m snobbish enough to deplore bad attempts at snobbery.
-TP
I’m the son of working class New Yorkers, and we always said “kew-pons.” (We also say “aven-yoo. Koo-pon has always sounded upper-crust to me. My dictionary gives both pronunciations as correct.
And the kind of coupons we had in our house weren’t the kind you clip. They were the kind you took to the A&P.
While you’re at it, I wish you would launch a war against the misuse of “lie and lay”, which is rampant
in all forms of the media.