"It is what it is. This verbal shrugging-off was examined here recently as an example of the use of repetition not for emphasis but for evasion. I called it a tautophrase, a coinage bottomed on tautology, from the Greek for 'redundant.'
"Readers are readers. Members of the Squad Squad stopped referring back to 'free gifts' long enough to challenge my facts about the current plethora of pleonasm, their mock outrage often expressed with facts are facts!"
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/magazine/07wwln_safire.html
Fun little editorticle on skillfull use of redundant phrases that create their own meaning.
geek @ <3
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