I was particularly struck by its list of tautologies (or as the guide says, "words that mean the same thing"). It includes:
- free gift
- new innovation
- pair of twins
- past history
- vast majority
- brief moment
- circle round
- join together
- repeated again
- mutual co-operation
- whether or not
- a dead corpse
- added bonus
- revert back
- future prospects
- early beginnings
- unite together
Now, I'm not sure that quite all of these are actually tautologous. 'Vast majority', for example – it is possible for a political party to have a slim majority, so I don't have a problem with vast majority either. What do you reckon?
And on another note, I remember a (former) member of the news desk here who was convinced it was incorrect to use the word 'whether' without following it with 'or not' . All I can imagine is that he fell under the influence of an ill-informed or malicious teacher at some point in his schooling...
(By the way – yesterday's question was correctly answered by TootsNYC, so read the comments if you were stumped.)