From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: The pleonasm contest Def: The use of more words than those necessary to express an idea; redundancy. For example: free gift. More than 900 readers sent pleonasms in response to this week's contest. Here are some that were sent by a lot of readers:
Misc: preplan, advance planning, past history, past experience, very unique, future plan, forward planning, tuna fish, at this point in time, déjà vu all over again, 9am in the morning, new innovation.
RAS Syndrome (Redundant Acronym Syndrome Syndrome): ATM machine, VAT tax, PCV valve, PIN number, VIN number, START treaty, SSN number, HIV virus, NIC Card, RPMs per minute, ER room, ISBN number, ATV vehicle, SQL language, CRT tube, LPG gas.
Trouble across the languages: chai tea, shrimp scampi, please RSVP, the La Brea Tar Pits.
Winner of the contest is Tracy Blues of Cape Town, South Africa for this entry: One of my favourite pleonasms is the Raid insecticide tagline: "Raid kills bugs dead." In 2002 there was some outdoor advertising of this in Johannesburg with a VW "bug" on its roof next to the advert -- so a pleonasm and a pun!

Refugees from a lost civilisation whose ruins and relics lie submerged on the seabed deep beneath the Persian Gulf may have founded ancient, advanced Middle Eastern societies thousands of years ago in the time before the Pharaohs. According to Jeffrey Rose, a Birmingham archaeologist, recent excavations and discoveries indicate that a large number of substantial and relatively sophisticated settlements sprang up around the shores of the Persian Gulf quite suddenly perhaps 7,500 years ago. “Where before there had been but a handful of scattered hunting camps, suddenly, over 60 new archaeological sites appear virtually overnight,” says Rose. “These settlements boast well-built, permanent stone houses, long-distance trade networks, elaborately decorated pottery, domesticated animals, and even evidence for one of the oldest boats in the world.” The theory might accord well with the myths and thousands-of-years-old records mentioning a place or land known as "Dilmun", known to the ancient Sumerians and Babylonians of the Middle East. Its location remains uncertain, but some theories suggest that Dilmun was located on the Gulf coast or an island in the Gulf - Bahrain is often suggested as a possibility. If Rose is correct, the Sumerians may in fact have been talking about a place now under water. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/09/ancient_dilmun_garden_eden_gulf_lost_civilisation/

Some people believe that that the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans played different versions of tennis. Drawings and descriptions of any tennis-like games have not been discovered, but a few Arabic words dating from ancient Egyptian times are cited as evidence. The theory goes that the name tennis derives from the Egyptian town of Tinnis alongside the Nile and the word racquet evolved from the Arabic word for palm of the hand, rahat. Aside from these two words, evidence for any form of tennis preceding the year 1000 is lacking, and most historians credit the first origins of the game to 11th or 12th century French monks, who began playing a crude handball against their monastery walls or over a rope strung across a courtyard. The game took on the name jeu de paume, which means “game of the hand.” Many who dispute more ancient origins argue that tennis derived from the French tenez, which meant something to the effect of “take this,” said as one player would serve to the other. As the game became more popular, courtyard playing areas began to be modified into indoor courts, where the ball was still played off the walls. After bare hands were found too uncomfortable, players began using a glove, then either a glove with webbing between the fingers or a solid paddle, followed by webbing attached to a handle–essentially a racquet. Rubber balls were still centuries away, so the ball was a wad of hair, wool, or cork wrapped in string and cloth or leather, then in later years, hand-stitched in felt to look something like a modern baseball. The nobility learned the game from the monks, and some accounts report as many as 1800 courts in France by the 13th century. The game became such a popular diversion, both the Pope and Louis IV tried unsuccessfully to ban it. It soon spread to England, where both Henry VII and Henry VIII were avid players who promoted the building of more courts. http://www.athleticscholarships.net/history-of-tennis.htm

There are many definitions for helm: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:helm&sa=X&ei=3f__TNiJK4et8AbM5t2ZBw&sqi=2&ved=0CBMQkAE Helm (deriving from the helmets worn in battle, the stylized helm sometimes signifies the rank of the person whose arms it accompanies) and other parts of heraldic images are explained here: http://www.library.nd.edu/rarebooks/digital_projects/heraldry/achievement.shtml

Occitan language (also called Provençal or Languedoc) is a Romance language spoken by about 1,500,000 people in southern France. All Occitan speakers use French as their official and cultural language, but Occitan dialects are used for everyday purposes and show no signs of extinction. The name Occitan is derived from the geographical name Occitania, which is itself patterned after Aquitania and the characteristic word oc and includes the regions of Limousin, Languedoc, the old Aquitaine, and the southern part of the French Alps, all of the populations of which are Occitan-speaking. The name Languedoc comes from the term langue d' oc, which denoted a language using oc for yes (from Latin hoc), in contrast to the French language, the langue d' oïl, which used oïl (modern oui) for yes (from Latin hoc ille). According to Encyclopédie Occitane, Provençal was actually the first Romance language to emerge from the mix of Roman and "barbarian" tongues; the earliest surviving texts in Langue d'Oc can be definitively attributed to the tenth century (a refrain attached to a Latin poem), and the 12th-century Donat provençal was the first grammar of a modern European language. The best-known ambassadors of Occitan were the troubadours, traveling minstrels who created enduring lyric poetry and canso, inventing and disseminating the idea of courtly love. Although Occitania was composed of small feudal polities, the Langue d'Oc benefited in medieval times from a common orthography, serving admirably as a language of philosophy, science, law and the arts, as well as the everyday dialect of its speakers. This usage continued well into the 14th century, and Occitan's eventual decline is closely tied to the evolution of royal power and the French state. http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Occitan/Occitan.html

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From: Ellen Amy Cohen Subject: apophasis When I read the definition, my mind was immediately brought back to the classic Bugs Bunny line: "I won't say it hasn't been a pleasure, because it hasn't."
From: Erna Buber-de Villiers Subject: sesquipedality German speakers? Zulu must be the most sesquipedalian language on earth. Here's a sample sentence, taken from a book for Zulu-speaking toddlers: Phela sengizigugela mina angisakwazi ukukhahlelana namathini emgwaqeni. 29 syllables for seven words - that's an average of 4.5 syllables per word. You won't find that in a simple German sentence!
From: Delores Orcutt Subject: paralipsis Def: Drawing attention to something while claiming to be passing over it. This brought to mind a character from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Gilderoy Lockhart uses a paralipsis when he often says that he's the "five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Smile Award -- but I don't talk about that." How apropos since one needs a "pair of lips" to win the most charming smile award.