“A 16-year-0ld high school junior drowned to death Tuesday…”

“There were six fatal drownings at seaside resorts in 2011…”

Drowned to death? A fatal drowning? Yes, those are redundant expressions. Drowning, by definition, means “dying by being underwater and unable to breathe.” But this kind of error isn’t uncommon in publications. Keep an eye out for this kind of deadly redundancy and get familiar with these other potentially misleading words.

(Today’s post seems a bit depressing. Sorry about that.)

Assassination:

Assassination is always deadly. It is the murder of a person of political importance.

Drowning:

As I said, drowning always implies death by submersion in water. People often use drown in a non-literal way, however–as in drowning one’s sorrows or drowning in work.

Electrocution:

Electrocution implies death by electricity. If the victim is non-fatally injured, he was simply shocked.

Homicide:

Homicide is another word for murder and by definition results in death. This is true of all the –cides: genocide, patricide, algaecide, etc.

Immolation:

Immolation means killing by fire. It always results in death. Self-immolation is suicide by setting yourself on fire. (Please don’t do that.)

Starvation:

People can die of starvation, but they can also merely suffer from it. It’s not redundant to say someone starved to death.

Strangulation:

Strangling or strangulation means to kill by squeezing the throat, but the word is often used in a figurative sense, so it’s not always apparent that someone who has been strangled is dead.

Suicide:

Suicide means self-killing. If the attempt fails, it is called attempted suicide. Suicide, however, can be used figuratively as well.

Suffocation:

There is a non-literal way to use this word. You can say, for example, that the air in a room is suffocating (especially after I remove my shoes).  Asphyxiation, on the other hand, just means one stops breathing. It can result in death, but it doesn’t have to.

Chart:

 

REDUNDANT	NOT NECESSARILY REDUNDANT
Fatal assassination	Starved to death
Fatal drowning/ drowned to death	Strangled to death
Fatal electrocution
Fatal homicide/murder/killing
Fatal immolation
Fatal suicide
Fatal suffocation/ suffocated to death
OFTEN USED FIGURATIVELY (NOT IMPLYING DEATH)
Killing               (The Eagles are killing the Vikings in the 3rd quarter.)
Murder             (These new government regulations are murder.)
Self-immolation  (Anything was better than the self-immolation of a confession.)
Starving           (When will dinner be ready, Dad? I’m starving!)
Strangling         (Heavy taxation is strangling job growth.)
Suffocating        (This air in this room is suffocating.)
Suicide              (A vote for that bill would be political suicide.)

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