Technically, for a logician, or a semanticist of the
Snow-is-White school, tautologies convey no information; but to linguists and pragmaticians, in
context they often do. In fact, we
may state that they usually do, since
otherwise why utter them? “Business
is business” is flint-hearted; “Boys
will be boys”, tenderly exculpatory.
The opposite of an utterance that pretends to contain no
information (and thus, in particular, to be inexpugnable) but actually does
(and often of a trenchant sort), is a definition that, ex cathedra, is all
about informing, but which melts to the touch. Cf. our essay here:
A recent example of the uses of tautology:
Robert Buissière on Médi1, re the (presumable eventual) Presidential front-runners (after the
Trumpwad has been flushed):
Jeb Bush, frère de son frère,
et Hillary Clinton, épouse de son époux.
As they stand, these are “analytic”; but we understand the
import: Jeb and Hillary got where
they are today, largely owing to family association.
Cf. & contrast the common expression “He is his father’s
son.” Normally this means that he
takes after his Dad, and not that he is getting any special favors from other
people owing to that filiation. To
imply the latter, you might say “Daddy’s little boy” or something. By contrast, the French phrases in the
above context do not imply that
Jeb’s politics are a close match to Dubya’s, let alone that Hillary’s are a
close match to Bill’s.
For the full essay to which that is an appendix, click here:
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