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Repetition

Avoidance of repetition​

In English, unnecessary repetition is generally avoided. Careful writers try not to repeat words and structures in the same clauses and sentences without a good reason. For instance, we do not normally put related nouns and verbs together.

  • We made wonderful plans. or We planned wonderful things. (but not We planned wonderful plans.)
  • She wrote an interesting piece. or She did an interesting piece of writing. (but not She wrote an interesting piece of writing.)

There are some fixed expressions which are exceptions: for example sing a song, live a good life, die a violent death.

Most of the repetitions in the following text would be avoided by a careful writer, by varying the structure and by careful use of synonyms (e.g. tried/attempted, summarise / describe briefly, forecast/predict).

  • In this report, I have tried to forecast likely developments over the next three years. In the first section, I have tried to summarise the results of the last two years, and I have tried to summarise the present situation. In the second section, I have tried to forecast the likely consequences of the present situation, and the consequences of the present financial policy.

Casual repetition is more common in informal language, but even in conversation people often sound monotonous or clumsy if they do not vary their sentence structure and vocabulary (see here). Some kinds of repetition are actually ungrammatical in both writing and speech (see here).

Deliberate repetition​

Writers (and speakers) can of course repeat vocabulary and structures deliberately. This may be done for emphasis.

  • That was a very, very unfortunate decision.
  • The head doctor made a point of knowing the name of every patient in the hospital: every man, every woman and every child.

Structural repetition can show how ideas are similar or related, by using the same structure for the same kind of item.

  • First of all, I wish to congratulate you all on this year’s splendid results. Secondly, I wish to give you some interesting news. And finally, I wish to thank you all …

Literary examples​

Here are two contrasting examples of repetition used deliberately for literary purposes. In the first, by John Steinbeck, structures and key vocabulary (especially nouns and verbs) are repeated and rhythmically balanced in order to create an impressive (or mock-impressive) effect – to make the story and characters sound striking and important.

  • This is the story of Danny and of Danny’s friends and of Danny’s house. It is a story of how these three became one thing, so that in Tortilla Flat if you speak of Danny’s house you do not mean a structure of wood flaked with old white-wash, overgrown with an ancient untrimmed rose of Castile. No, when you speak of Danny’s house you are understood to mean a unit of which the parts are men, from which came sweetness and joy, philanthropy, and, in the end, a mystic sorrow. For Danny’s house was not unlike the Round Table, and Danny’s friends were not unlike the knights of it. And this is the story of how the group came into being, of how it flourished and grew to be an organisation beautiful and wise. This story deals with the adventuring of Danny’s friends, with the good they did, with their thoughts and their endeavors. In the end, this story tells how the talisman was lost and how the group disintegrated.

    — John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat

In contrast, the following text, by Ernest Hemingway, uses a kind of style which ‘good’ writers would normally avoid, repeating pronouns and simple structures in an apparently monotonous way. Hemingway’s purpose is to show the simplicity of his hero, an uneducated old fisherman, by using a style that is supposed to reflect the way he thinks and speaks.

  • He did not remember when he had first started to talk aloud when he was by himself. He had sung when he was by himself in the old days and he had sung at night sometimes when he was alone steering on his watch in the smacks or in the turtle boats. He had probably started to talk aloud, when alone, when the boy had left. But he did not remember.

    — Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea