pleonasm

No. There is nothing redundant that I can see-- just intensifiers.

And what about the phrase "to bring off successfully". Is this a pleonasm? (standard dictionary definition of "bring off" is "to be successful")

It is not pleonasm too.

bring off = save, rescue (from sth), but

to bring it off = succed (in, with ger.), be successful (in, with ger.), manage (to, with inf).

AnonymousAnd what about the phrase "to bring off successfully". Is this a pleonasm? (standard dictionary definition of "bring off" is "to be successful")

Well, you can't bring something off "unsuccessfully"; so I suppose there is an element of redundancy.

But I suppose we're all a little redundant, in one way or another. You might regard the adve

Mister MicawberNo. There is nothing redundant that I can see-- just intensifiers.

In French, the pleonasm can be used correctly to emphasize the obvious: "I saw it with my own eyes". Is this considered pleonastic, superfluous, colloquial, colorful, or what, in English? This particular sentence is very common, indeed.

Hello Philip

If "pleonasm" is "using more words than necessary", or "an excess of words", I would say no – otherwise, we would be able to use "I saw it with my own eyes" in contexts where we usually simply say "I saw". But it seems to me we only use it in special contexts.

Other members may disagree, though!

MrP

I was going with a very simple definition, Philip: a pleonasm is a formation which says the same thing twice. Interestingly, Silva Rhetoricae uses the same example for its wider definition:

pleonasm

You can find it here, what is pleonasm and its variations.

There are two kinds of pleonasm: syntactic pleonasm and semantic pleonasm.

Have a look into this site, there is enough information about the greek word and its apposition in some languages nowaday.