Hartford Courant (Sunday)

Can you find the unnecessar­y redundanci­es in this quiz?

- By Rob Kyff Special to The Courant

The Department of Repetitive Redundancy, led by its leaders Pete and Re-Pete, who are a pair of twins, has generated a new innovation: a quiz designed to closely scrutinize your ability to detect repetitive words and phrases. Can you find five redundanci­es in this paragraph, as well as 25 in this speech by a worried company president?:

My fellow colleagues, today we find ourselves surrounded on all sides by many challenges. This will require us to collaborat­e together throughout the entire company.

We are experienci­ng a serious crisis — a poisonous venom that is not always visible to the eye. The cause of these problems is due to a variety of different factors. Let's take a brief respite to consider them.

First, we still have unfilled vacancies in many department­s. True, we have recently hired several new recruits, but this has provided only a temporary reprieve.

Second, a recent audit has found problems in our financial budget. Revenues from several department­s have erroneousl­y been commingled by mistake, and this merging together of resources has caused confusion.

Third, many of you have been frequentin­g the employee lounge on a regular basis. This would be fine if you were interactin­g with one another there, but many of you are sitting alone in solitude.

I know we can't entirely eliminate these problems overnight, but it's an absolute necessity that we address these issues. The consensus of opinion among our top managers is that, with proper advance planning, we can revert back to basic fundamenta­ls. to) 9. a variety of (different) factors 10. (brief ) respite

11. (unfilled) vacancies 12. (new) recruits 13. (temporary) reprieve 14. (financial) budget 15. erroneousl­y been commingled (by mistake)

16. merging (together) 17. frequentin­g the employee lounge (on a regular basis) 18. interactin­g (with one another) 19. sitting alone (in solitude) 20. (entirely) eliminate

21. (absolute) necessity 22. consensus (of opinion) 23. (advance) planning 24. revert (back) 25. (basic) fundamenta­ls

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