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In rhetoric, a tautology is an unnecessary (and usually unintentional) repetition of meaning, utilising different words, i.e. saying the same thing twice.
Tautology, often regarded as a fault of style, was defined by Fowler as "saying the same thing twice". In fact, it is not necessary for the entire meaning of a phrase to be repeated; if a part of the meaning is repeated in such a way that it appears as unintentional or clumsy, then it may be described as tautology. On the other hand, a repetition of meaning which improves the style of a piece of speech or writing is not usually described as tautology, although it may be a logical tautology. Below is a discussion of various patterns of semantic repetition and to what extent they are tautologies.
The British supermarket Tesco sells a brand of lemon thyme which it describes as having an "aromatic aroma". Non-cognate synonyms may also produce a tautology; "free gift" is tautologous because a gift, by definition, is something given without charge. Other examples of tautology include phrases such as "new innovation" and "tuna fish". The Yogi Berra-esque statement "If you don't get any better, you'll never improve" is another example.
Exact repetitions of meaning sometimes occur when multiple languages are used together, such as "the ''La Brea'' Tar Pits" (the The tar Tar Pits), "the hoi polloi" (the the many), "Sierra Nevada Mountains" (Snowy Mountains Mountains),"Sahara Desert" (Desert Desert), "shiba inu dog" (small dog dog), "cheese quesadilla" (cheese cheese-item), Mount Fujiyama (Mount Fuji-mountain), "Lake Tahoe" (Lake Lake), "chai tea" (tea tea), "salsa sauce" (sauce sauce), "Table Mesa" (Table Table), "Angkor Wat temple" (Angkor Temple temple), "The Los Angeles Angels" (The The Angels Angels), or possibly the most extreme example: "Torpenhow Hill" (Hill-hill-hill Hill). The tautological status of these phrases is somewhat subjective and can be harder to detect than monolingual varieties, since they are only perceived as tautologous by people who understand enough of each of the involved languages, and because of the way that words change meaning as they drift from one language to another. For example, chai is Hindi for "tea", but in the United States, where the phrase "chai tea" is common, what is referred to as "chai" is more precisely "Masala chai." Salsa and Pizza Pie, pizza being the Italian for "pie", are also examples of tautology.
Other examples of repetitions occur in the spoken word when multiple languages are used. In bilingual (French and English) areas of Canada, for example, people may say things like "I'm going to cross the river at the Pont Champlain Bridge." (... at the Bridge Champlain Bridge). Repetitions like these occur more frequently when the bilingual phrases are used on road signage.
In some cases an acronym or abbreviation is commonly used in conjunction with a word which is actually part of the shortened form. One of the better known examples of this is PIN Number, which is often used when explaining the concept due to its familiarity to many people. Another example is MLS listings. This is humorously, self-referentially referred to as "RAS syndrome".
A repetition of meaning may be intended to amplify or emphasize a certain aspect of the thing being discussed: for example, a gift is by definition free of charge, but one might talk about a "free gift" to emphasize that there are no hidden obligations, financial or otherwise, or that the gift is being given out of free will. This is related to the rhetorical device of hendiadys, where one concept is expressed through the use of two, for example "goblets and gold" meaning wealth, or "this day and age" to mean the present time. Superficially these expressions may seem tautologous, but they are stylistically sound because the repeated meaning is merely a stylized way to express a single unified concept.