I also support the idea that redundancy can be quite catchy as well as contagious. LOL!
***During WWII Churchill once submitted a draft of an important wartime speech to the British Foreign Office for comment which was returned to him with no comment whatever on content. But where he had ended a sentence with a preposition a Foreign Office purist had careted the preposition into its stiffly grammatical position.
At this the Prime Minister flew into a lather. To the offending purist he dispatched a note: "This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put!"****Louis J. Alber, Current History and Forum (^:
Samuel Johnson of the 18th Century (and of course I'm sure you know all about him, watsonfellow) also had a great wit. Johnson was at a dinner party when one of the women started to get up from her chair. Unfortunately for her, at that moment a VERY LOUD emission of gas escaped from her posterior. Quickly the woman scuffed her heel on the floor in order to make the pretense that that was the source of the disgusting sound. The other dinner guests, embarrassed, pretend not to have noticed.....EXCEPT for Samuel Johnson who immediately commented:
"Madame. We heard you the first time,
There is no need to make it rhyme."