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Often pleonasm is understood to mean an excess word or phrase which is unnecessary, clichéd, or wrong. But a pleonasm can also be simply an unremarkable use of idiom. It can even aid in achieving a particular linguistic effect, be it social, poetic, or literary. In other words, pleonasm sometimes serves the same function as rhetorical repetition -- it reinforces a point, and makes the writing clearer and easier to understand.

In addition, pleonasms can serve purposes external to meaning. For example, a speaker who is overly terse is often interpreted as lacking ease or grace. This is because, in spoken language, sentences are spontaneously created without the benefit of going back and ing. The restriction on the ability to plan often creates much redundancy. In written language, removing words that aren't strictly necessary can sometimes make writing seem stilted or awkward, especially if the words are cut from an idiomatic expression.

Some pleonastic phrases are part of a language's idiom, like "safe haven" and "tuna fish" in English. They are so common that their use is unremarkable, although in many cases the redundancy can be dropped with no loss of meaning.

Pleonastic phrases like "off of" are common in spoken or informal written English, such as when used in a phrase like "keep the cat off of the couch", for instance. In a satellite-framed language like English, verb phrases containing particles that denote direction of motion are so frequent that even when such a particle is pleonastic, it seems natural to include it.

On the other hand, as is the case with any literary or rhetorical effect, excessive use of pleonasm can weaken writing or speech. Too many words can distract from the content. Writers who want to conceal a thought or a purpose sometimes obscure their meaning with an onslaught of verbiage. William Strunk Jr. argued for conciseness in The Elements of Style, (1918):

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.







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