I mean stuff like:
“level best” instead of something like “I’ll do my best”
creature comforts in place of just plain comfort
standard issue instead of just standard
tuna fish – what other kind of tuna is there? Why the need to specify something that’s already understood?
Cheddar cheese – same as above, cheddar already implies cheese
spaghetti noodles – again, same.
As a Romance language speaker, it feels redundant, specially the food ones! Is there a reason for it historically? Also is that an American thing even or a general English language thing?
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There’s also prickly pear cactus fruit called tuna.
Spaghetti noodles clarifies the noodles only rather than referring to the whole prepared dish with sauce.
Sometimes people just like using extra words or phrases for stylistic reasons. We are not robots. We can make our language more colorful just for fun.
>“level best”
I have never heard this
>creature comforts in place of just plain comfort
Creature comforts are specific type of comfortable things
>standard issue instead of just standard
standard issue refers to things that are issued to people, like in the armed forces, they are issued a standard set of equipment. It just made it’s way into the causal vernacular.
>tuna fish – what other kind of tuna is there?
tuna fish refers to a specific way the tuna is prepared.
>Cheddar cheese – same as above, cheddar already implies cheese
everyone I know would just say cheddar. I’m not sure where this is coming from.
>spaghetti noodles – again, same.
Again, what?
I’ve never heard “level best”
“creature comforts” means something different from “comforts”
same with “standard issue”
“tuna fish”…….. yeah you got me on that one, I have no clue.
Not sure about the cheese one. I think it’s more a language thing than an American thing.
No one says “spaghetti noodles”
Well something like “Spaghetti Noodles” would actually have a distinct use separate from just “Spaghetti”, as the latter could be referring to the dish spaghetti or spaghetti noodles.
But I get your overall point. Honestly I didn’t notice that we kind of do that a lot. I imagine many of them come from old traditions, like the reason we say “cell phone” instead of just “cell” is because at one point, landline phones were much more common and people just didn’t know what “cells” were.
I’ve heard “level best” from non-Americans — Brits and South Asians — far more than Americans.
And some of these — tuna fish vs tuna, creature comfort vs comfort — mean different things. Tunafish is when it comes from a can. Nobody would say tunafish sushi, for example.
We have lots of idioms, many are two words. I haven’t heard these ones.
That’s like asking why Germans like crazy compound words. There’s no “why” that will satisfy you; it’s just how the language has evolved down the centuries.
> tuna fish – what other kind of tuna is there? Why the need to specify something that’s already understood?
https://mysliceofmexico.ca/2018/09/03/tunas-nothing-fishy-about-these/
Tunas are the fruit of a cactus that grows in North America.
Spaghetti is Italian. Noodle is English. They’re specifying which type of noodle.
Edit: We also had a very large immigrant population from Germany, where tuna is called Thunfisch. Like every other immigrant group in the US, they too would have heavily influenced culture and dialects of English around the country.
Yeah, this is not a specifically American thing.
We like intensifiers. We’re literally hyperbolic that way.
Some of this is over stated, I’ve heard people say tuna fish is redundant far more times than I’ve actually said tuna fish.
Some of it is labels, “cheese” has a specific meaning so packaging will say “cheddar cheese” to differentiate from cheddar flavored products but people dont necessarily say it out loud often.
Some of it changes the tone and implications slightly , like level best, or is just kinda fun/cutesy like creature comforts. We do love our alliteration.
Some of it is clarification you’d only use occasionally. We commonly refer to spaghetti noodles served with a meat and tomato sauce just as “spaghetti” because its so commonly served that way so if you’re talking about using them in some other dish you might say “spaghetti noodles with bacon and parmesan”.
Tuna fish is used pretty much exclusively to refer to canned tuna.
Creature comforts are a particular kind of comfort.
The “level” in “level best” is an intensifier.
Standard issue means something that is given (issued) to everyone in a particular group.
Cheddar cheese isn’t instead of “cheddar” by itself – it is instead of “cheese” by itself. What kind of cheese? Also, Cheddar by itself can also refer to places as it is a place name.
I’ve never heard anyone say “spaghetti noodles.” Pasta (Italian type) is rarely referred to as noodles at all where I live. “Noodles” tends to refer to things like egg noodles or Asian noodles such as udon.
I speak two Romance languages and am working on my third, in addition to Latin, which I don’t consider exactly a Romance language as it is the parent language. There are redundancies and peculiarities in every language. Why? Because that is how languages develop.
Why bother saying words at all when you can just point and grunt?
wtf is level best
Level best –
When I hear this phrase used, it is meant to add a bit of light teasing into the statement
Tuna fish-
not just a name for a fish but a specific type of dish prepared with tuna
Cheddar cheese –
Cheddar is a verb, an adjective and a proper name. To cheddar a piece of cheese is to apply pressure over a length of time to remove water content and make the texture firmer. This was made popular in the village of Cheddar, England.
Spaghetti noodles –
There are many kinds of noodles. Spaghetti is only one specific type. The word noodles isn’t descriptive enough in some situations.
Creature comforts –
This phrase has a connotation of simple joy, low key indulgence with maybe a tiny hint of remorse or shame for wanting/needing such comforts.
Standard issue –
Carries a connotation not just of basic but expected, boring, unadventurous.
We use these phrases because they are more descriptive than the single words. I know English is chock full (another idiom) of idioms which can be confusing but they are fun and useful and they add color to our exchanges.
>spaghetti noodles
This is to separate it from spaghetti string, or spaghetti sauce.
For greater specificity, clearer detail, and just regional habit. I’ve heard level best, which just means that I tried hard to do something but wasn’t as good as someone who does it regularly.
English is full of sayings, archaic words that only work in one setting, holdovers that somehow survived usage, and vocab borrowed from other languages. It’s part of what makes English fun and also one of the most aggravating languages to learn.
As far as why those idioms and odd vocabulary exist, English is a versatile language that likes to go through other languages’ pockets for loose words. English also endured colonization and cultural influx from other tribes in its history. And then the versatility of the language encourages users to add flair and description.
Long story short, we like our language simple, descriptive, and playful.
Idk you save time by not having to memorize noun genders, so we had to make up weird stuff to make it more challenging
Can’t say I ever hear anyone actually say that in person.
I don’t do that, and it annoys me also
if you think this is redundant, Mandarin Chinese has even more examples of this. over the many centuries the language has evolved, words that were historically monosyllabic (1 syllable) often got lengthened into 2 syllable words to clarify once distinct sounding words that became homophones over time because of changes in the sounds of the language. It’s like how in accents that pronounce “pen” and “pin” the same, speakers sometimes say “ink pen” to distinguish the two
I know the answer to this!
LEGAL DOUBLETS
The English language acquired legal doublets after 1066, when the Norman French invaded. Thereafter, a bunch of crimes/torts were assigned doublets that used one English/Germanic word and one French/Latin word, like “will and testament” or “breaking and entering” or “goods and chattels.” This was because the lords and judges all spoke French/Latin, but the people accused of crimes all spoke English, so you had to say it twice so both the person on trial and the person holding the trial knew what you meant.
This became SUCH a feature of legal English that we started doubling things in English or in French — aid and abet are both French/Latinate; to have and to hold are both English/Germanic. But doublets in legal English are considered more formal and official than single terms.
Also, with “creature comforts,” Old English poetry relies heavily on alliteration rather than rhyme, so alliteration sounds very natural to native Germanic speakers. (“Grendel, gross and grim, famished for flesh.”)
English is enormously expansive and forgiving, because the Vikings stole all our grammar and we just use A LOT OF WORDS to make sentences make sense, rather than using cases or conjugations like a normal language. If you said you want cheddar on your burger, we would all understand that. If you said you wanted cheddar cheese, we would ALSO all understand that! Pick the one that feels right. (To me, “tuna” is a dish adults get in a fancy restaurant, while “tuna fish” is what children eat in sandwiches; but in fact there’s no difference between the two, it’s just a connotation thing.) Almost anything you say in English we can turn into a sensible sentence, which is our great strength as a language. Having no grammar means we don’t care what order you say things or how you say them — just throw the words in a sentence soup and we’ll sort it out on our end, double-especially if you’re not a native speaker, because we’re all super-conscious that being a native speaker of English is now “easy mode” for existing in the world.