Over Again

Question

"He took the test over again."Would dropping "over" or "again" lead to ungrammaticalness?  It seems "over" and "again" overlap in meaning.

Avangi · Accepted Answer

GainRainungrammaticalness?

No. "Over again" is a very common collocation, albeit somewhat casual.

"Take the test over" and "take the test again" are both common and have approximately the same meaning.

There can be a different sense, in that "to do something over" is more likely to imply that there was something wrong with the first effort/attempt..

Anonymous · Answer

Without further context, you cannot drop any words in this sentence. As it stands, the sentence implies that this is the second time that he has re-tested. If you drop either "over" or "again" (but you can't drop both), the resulting sentence implies that this is his first re-test. Thus you lose significant meaning by dropping those words.

The original sentence could also mean that this is his first re-test, but the sentence is emphatic about it, hence, the seemingly redundant wording. In informal English you often have this kind of redundancy, for emphasis, as in: "I never did nothing to deserve this." By dropping either word, you have the same meaning, but you lose the sense of emphasis that the original sentence has.

GainRain · Answer

So, "over again" could be redundant and/or ambiguous?

Over Again

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