[ri-duhn-duh
n-see] Pronunciation Key | 1. | the state of being redundant. |
| 2. | superfluous repetition or overlapping, esp. of words. |
| 3. | a redundant thing, part, or amount; superfluity. |
| 4. | the provision of additional or duplicate systems, equipment, etc., that function in case an operating part or system fails, as in a spacecraft. |
| 5. | Linguistics.
|
| 6. | Chiefly British.
|
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
| re·dun·dan·cy
(rĭ-dŭn'dən-sē) Pronunciation Key
n. pl. re·dun·dan·cies
Usage Note: The usages that critics have condemned as redundancies fall into several classes. Some expressions, such as old adage, mental telepathy, and VAT tax have become fixed expressions and seem harmless enough. In some cases, such as consensus of opinion, hollow tube, and refer back, the use of what is regarded as an unnecessary modifier or qualifier can sometimes be justified on the grounds that it in fact makes a semantic contribution. Thus a hollow tube can be distinguished from one that has been blocked up with deposits, and a consensus of opinion can be distinguished from a consensus of judgments or practice. Some locutions, such as close proximity, have been so well established that criticizing them may seem petty. See Usage Notes at rarely, refer. Our Living Language : Although certain vernacular constructions, such as the double comparative and superlative constructions (as in more higher and most fastest) are scorned as unschooled redundancies, many fundamental features of Standard English, such as subject-verb agreement, also manifest redundancy in their double marking. For example, in She sits on the chair, the -s inflection on sit indicates that the subject of the sentence is a third-person-singular form. However, this information is redundant—it is conveyed by she. Standard English pronoun forms may encode redundancies too. Subject pronouns are nominative, and direct object pronouns are objective (for example, I saw him and He saw me); these distinctive forms are technically not necessary, however, since normal English word order makes evident whether a pronoun refers to a subject or object. Nevertheless, standard practice requires the avoidance of constructions such as double comparatives except when they are employed for rhetorical or comical effect. |
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
| redundancy | |
noun | |
| 1. | repetition of messages to reduce the probability of errors in transmission |
| 2. | the attribute of being superfluous and unneeded; "the use of industrial robots created redundancy among workers" |
| 3. | (electronics) a system design that duplicates components to provide alternatives in case one component fails |
| 4. | repetition of an act needlessly |
redundancy
Unnecessary repetition in speech or writing. The expression freedom and liberty is redundant.
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
redundancy
1.
Redundancy can also be used to detect and recover from errors, either in hardware or software. A well known example of this is the cyclic redundancy check which adds redundant data to a block in order to detect corruption during storage or transmission. If the cost of errors is high enough, e.g. in a safety-critical system, redundancy may be used in both hardware AND software with three separate computers programmed by three separate teams and some system to check that they all produce the same answer, or some kind of majority voting system.
2.
Technically, redundancy is one minus the ratio of the actual uncertainty to the maximum uncertainty. This is the fraction of the structure of the message which is determined not by the choice of the sender, but rather by the accepted statistical rules governing the choice of the symbols in question.
[Shannon and Weaver, 1948, p. l3]
[Better explanation?]
(1995-05-09)
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