A couple years ago, frequent commenter and friend of the site Vance Maverick left a comment linking to a mysterious sign located in San Francisco’s Mission District:
The sign was brought up as part of a brief discussion of the construction the reason why, and whether it ought to be replaced with the reason that. When the building the sign was on passed to new owners, they appeared to answer this question by modifying the sign:
But was it right to remove the why?* What’s the beef with the reason why, and ought it to be the reason that?
You probably already know the argument against the reason why, because it’s the same hoary argument trotted out for so many grammatical constructions that have, for whatever reason, earned the irritated attention of prescriptivists. I’m speaking, of course, of the great grammatical bogeyman of redundancy. A quick pair of examples:
“Both the reason is because and the reason why have something very basic in common: they’re entries for the category of the redundancy category.”
“if you say ‘The reason why…’ it’s like saying the word ‘reason’ twice.” [Tarzan and Jane’s Guide to Grammar, 2005]
But so what? Why is redundancy bad? Well, you might say that it’s inefficient. But communication is a noisy system, whether you’re talking in a windy area, or reading an email through a smudged screen, or talking to a somewhat distracted interlocutor. In addition to these external sources of noise, the language itself adds some noise, in the form of lexical and structural ambiguities (e.g., the possible meanings of Time flies like an arrow). Adding redundant information is the rational thing to do if you expect the noise levels to be high enough that some information will be lost, and in almost every linguistic situation, that’s the case.
For many non-linguistic problems, redundancy is already regarded as a logical solution. Suppose you give me the first 15 digits of your credit card number (please do). Then I can tell you what the final digit is going to be, because the last digit is completely determined by applying an algorithm to the first 15 digits. Why not just use 15 digits, then? Well, because writing down a sequence of numbers is an easy task to screw up. By including the check digit in the 16th spot, most minor transcription errors can be caught before the transaction is started. Yeah, it’s redundant, but it’s rational redundancy.
Language has similar reasons to use rational redundancy. In an example relevant to my daily life, UCSD’s campus is positioned under the flight path of planes landing at the local Marine base. Sometimes in the middle of a sentence the engine noise becomes too loud for someone I’m talking to to hear what I’ve said. It would be absurd to refuse to repeat myself because the second time is redundant.
Now a second example: explaining a complicated concept. In academic papers, you’ll often see someone state a point, and then immediately follow it up with “That is to say”, followed by a re-statement of the argument. If you got the argument the first time, the second explanation might be unnecessary, but because some people might not have gotten it, it’s worth re-iterating.
That is to say, redundancy is not inherently bad in language.** Every agreement marker in a language is in some sense redundant. For instance, if I want to compliment some bears in Spanish for their strength, I might say:
(1) Ustedes son osos fuertes (“You-plural are bears strongs“)
Each of the four words in that sentence are marked as plural. Shouldn’t it be sufficient to only label one word as plural? This is a little bit of a special case, because the redundancy is required by the grammar. But the truth is that redundancy is common even in places where the grammar doesn’t demand it. An obvious example:
(2) The person who left their wet swimsuit on my books is going to pay.
This sentence would be fine as the person that, and would be less redundant (we already know it’s a human being that the relative clause is modifying), but no one complains here. In fact, this is the preferred version according to many prescriptivists.
Now, all of this goes to show that some redundancy is okay, but it doesn’t directly address whether this particular redundancy is okay. We can surely agree that there are unacceptable redundancies, like the old department of redundancy department. But unacceptable redundancies have something else wrong with them. It’s not that they’re merely redundant; it’s that they’re redundant and longer, or redundant and confusing, or redundant and awkward.
The reason why (and similarly, the person who) is only redundant. It’s actually shorter than the alternative the reason that, and it’s neither confusing nor awkward. At absolute worst, it’s stylistically unpleasant, and even that’s in the eye of the beholder.
One last thing, and something that should tell you that the redundancy point is off the mark, is that the reason why is both common and venerable. Both Google Books N-grams and the Corpus of Historical American English have the reason why being consistently more common than the reason that for the last 200 years. And the first example of the reason why in the Oxford English Dictionary dates back to 1533:
“He couth fynd na resson quhy he aucht nocht to helpe þe romane pepill to recovir þe land.”
![[Google Books N-grams results for "the reason why" and "the reason that"]](https://motivatedgrammar.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/reason-why-that.png?w=490&h=256 "reason-why-that")
Summary: Are people telling you that the reason why is redundant and therefore unacceptable? They’re wrong; there’s nothing inherently unacceptable about redundancy, and the reason why has been standard for centuries.
—
*: The story of the sign is revealed here.
**: Nor in other areas; architectural structural redundancy prevented significant damage to the Empire State Building when a plane crashed into it in the 40s.
Motivated Grammar 
58 comments
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November 17, 2011 at 9:56 am
mike
The one that I always mock, gently, is “the reason is because …. :-)
I believe redundancy is also supposed to be the argument against “where at.”
Speaking of inflections, using the justification of redundancy, you could argue that AAVE is more “efficient” in its verbal constructions by essentially eliminating conjugations for person. Somehow I doubt that someone who rolls out the redundancy argument to quibble about “reason why” is going to take that argument far enough to champion “he be,” tho.
November 17, 2011 at 10:14 am
Jonathon
I think point (2) is the key—it’s only redundant in the way every relative pronoun or adverb is redundant, because it refers back to an earlier part of the sentence. It’s exactly as redundant as the place where you belong or the man who came to dinner.
Also, from what I can tell, the OED actually dates relative why to 1225, not 1533: “Monie ma reisuns beoð hwi mon mei beon bitterliche sari for his sunnen” (There are many [?] reasons why man may be bitterly sorry for his sins).
And MWDEU says that the dislike of reason why is a twentieth-century American invention. After seven centuries of established usage, someone noticed that the phrase can sometimes be replaced with reason that (though MWDEU notes that this isn’t always possible) and decided, in the grand tradition of many prescriptions, that if there are two ways to say something, one must be wrong. Of course, there’s no reason why this should be.
November 17, 2011 at 10:19 am
Jonathon
Mike: That’s a good example of how justifications for prescriptions are usually post hoc. Someone notices a word or phrase, becomes irritated by it, and then conjures up a reason to disfavor it. But a lot of those justifications are at cross purposes, so if you take them as axioms and follow them to their logical end, you’d actually have to end up accepting a lot of nonstandard forms and throwing out standard ones. Redundancy is not really the reason why reason why is disliked—it’s just a pet peeve that some people have cultivated.
November 17, 2011 at 11:21 am
John Cowan
Besides, banning it would have wrecked the unofficial anthem of Cornwall:
A good sword and a trusty hand!
A faithful heart and true!
King James‘s men shall understand
What Cornish lads can do!
And have they fixed the where and when?
And shall Trelawny die?
Here’s twenty thousand Cornish men
Will know the reason why!
—“The Song of the Western Men”, Robert Stephen Hawker (1824)
YouTube versions: the Cornish Proms, a folk version in a Scottish accent, the opera singer David Keith Jones, faux Nashville by a modern RP-speaker, a rock version by a North of Englander, a choral version of the 20th-century Cornish translation.
November 17, 2011 at 11:51 am
Vance Maverick
Thanks for remembering this — it was a pleasure to see this pop up. Unfortunately the sign is gone now, replaced by an ordinary billboard. It’s remembered in the name of a local foundation / art space, 18 Reasons. The change to “18” makes sense, given that the foundation is on 18th St. (indeed, on the block where I live); but the excision of “why” is regrettable.
November 17, 2011 at 7:43 pm
elevengoalposts
Another well-reasoned argument, but I’ll mention a few things to consider as well.
1Those sources showing “why” being “consistently more common than the reason that for the last 200 years”.
That’s not really a valid point. Frequency of use, frequency of anything, doesn’t mean something is correct and appropriate. Incorrectness in use, in some cases, is seen far more often – incorrect use and spelling is seen everyday by people who don’t know the correct form. With frequent incorrect use comes a repetition of of that by others.
2/ …the reason “why” has been standard for centuries.
I think it’s more correct to say that “why” might have been used for “centuries”, but not that it was necessary “standard”. With the formalisation of spelling and grammar – particularly in the 19th – many previously, commonly used things were eliminated from formal language. Some of that “incorrect” “stuff” has been finding itself back in use in recent decades because of the lack of teaching of spelling and grammar to the standard it once was – especially in the UK..
3/ Redundancy
There seems to be some similarity between redundancy and tautology – perhaps they are the same? We see “safe haven” every day in articles on finance, for example. “Reason why” is deemed something similar, but it’s no big deal either way, really.
November 18, 2011 at 1:31 am
Mar Rojo
Elevengoalposts, would you say that “who” could be seen as redundant here?
“The person who broke my window will be found and punished.”
November 18, 2011 at 1:37 am
Mar Rojo
Jonathon, which is redundant here, is it “the place” or “where”?
“Go back to the place where you belong.”
November 18, 2011 at 2:09 am
Omit needless criticisms of redundancy « Sentence first
[…] Gabe Doyle at Motivated Grammar has written a useful post on redundancy, paying particular reference to the reason why vs. the reason that. He writes: “Adding […]
November 18, 2011 at 2:20 am
Stan
The reason why is one of those phrases I initially viewed with suspicion, because my route into editing was marked more by prescriptivist signposts and warning flags than by descriptivist ideas. But it didn’t take long for me to realise that there’s really nothing wrong with it, any more than there’s something wrong with the place where you belong or the man who came to dinner, to use Jonathon’s examples.
I think the corpus data you’ve used are slightly misleading, though, because they include a significant amount of noise from verb forms of reason in common phrases like “I reason that” and “He would reason that”. Adding the to your search strings sidesteps this and gives the curve a somewhat different shape.
November 18, 2011 at 7:16 am
Vance Maverick
elevengoalposts, what’s the definition of “correct” you’re working with? (Perhaps having eleven goalposts means you don’t actually have to move them?)
November 18, 2011 at 7:48 am
elevengoalposts
Correct, from my view here?
For correct spelling, for example, that is either the single, undisputed spelling of words – and sticking with English, rather than American English, which might have alternatives – or regular, accepted spellings, as per a dictionary like the OED. Here, I would regard the modern-day spellings, rather than the historical ones. Before the time of Dr Johnson’s dictionary, there was virtually no standard spelling in English, so the ones often quoted by the OED from history don’t have real relevance, as most people then couldn’t read or write (in English, as opposed to Latin and Greek), and no one had standardised anything.
I’m not a prescriptivist, but formalisation and/or standardisation are very important and useful processes for learning. Because of the lack of attention to the English language in many schools in the UK for decades, the standard of literacy, as per tests over time, has been claimed to be diminishing – hence, employers often have to send new employees on “remedial courses”.
The “elevengoalposts” moniker comes from a saying by the famous Liverpool football manager, Bill Shankly. After a totally one-sided game against a defensively-playing opposing team had ended in a draw, he claimed that Liverpool had been playing against eleven goalposts.
November 18, 2011 at 11:29 am
Warsaw Will
elevengoalposts. If you won’t accept MDWEU, how about Fowlers 3rd edition, which says that ‘The reason why’ has been in idiomatic use since the 13th century, and was used by, amongst others, Shakespeare, and the writer goes on to say ‘and remains valid in the 20th century’ (it was written in 1968).
By the way American English is English. What you and I speak is British English.
November 18, 2011 at 5:01 pm
elevengoalposts
@Warwaw Will
No, what “we” speak is English (or at least what I speak is English); there’s no such thing as British English. English is the original.
French people in France speak French. Some people in other countries may speak the original, faithful French, or some variant, I suppose. If there is a variant, it could be called French, but no one refers to French French!
You’ve hit the nail on the head by using, “idiomatic use”. That doesn’t make it standard use. I’m not saying the “reason why” is wrong, just that it is not necessary to do that – I’m happy either way. One could just construct sentences using “reason” or “why” separately, as in “I don’t know the reason” or “I don’t know why”.
As I’ve said before, the language of hundreds of years ago was informal, in the sense that it was not taught n schools with any formality. There were hardly any schools anyway, other than “public schools” or private tuition. Over time, the language became formalised, and was taught as such, becoming the standard way.
November 18, 2011 at 3:40 pm
Mike Briggs
“(2) The person who left their wet swimsuit on my books . . .”
Are you really truly saying that “the person . . . their” is preferred by the prescriptivists? Surely they’d prefer “the person . . . his or her?’
November 18, 2011 at 8:47 pm
elevengoalposts
I wouldn’t consciously use “their” as per your example.
However, in more times I have occasionally lapsed into following the language used by public servants/bureaucrats and material put out by PR people in that vein.
I think that way has developed to avoid getting caught out by people claiming the use of sexist/discriminatory language, as with chairman (and chairperson, or “chair”). Many articles and publications have used “her” often for that reason.
November 19, 2011 at 6:21 pm
mike
> English is the original.
Yes, it’s also our (American) original. Just because your ancestors stayed put doesn’t give your dialect any more validity than ours. ALL of our dialects come from a common source.
PS I hope that you’re equally stringent in labeling it “_British_ rock-and-roll,” since, because that style of music originated inside our borders, any music resembling rock and roll that comes out of the British Isles much be qualified to show that it is not “original.”
November 19, 2011 at 7:33 pm
elevengoalposts
I don’t think there’s a need to become aggressive!
The language of the UK is English, just as French is in France and Japanese in Japan. Any variations of those in other countries can be referred to as something else.. The standard Chinese language is Mandarin, but there are very many variations such as Cantonese, as is spoken in Hong Kong and by some in other countries.
The language in America can be described in whatever way the Americans want to do it.
It’s really only got to this position because of the progress of computerisation, word-processing, spell-checking, etc. The software set up by Microsoft and others created the option for users of different localities to choose particular spellings.
Nevertheless, there is no such thing as “British English”, and never has been. The language is simply English. Americans are perfectly free to describe their language as American, if they wish. What’s the problem with that?
November 20, 2011 at 12:31 pm
StuartD
Three or four points for elevengoalpoasts. Of course there is such a thing as British English. The term is used in linguistics, teaching, and in everyday speech. I don’t mean to be rude but it is absurd to argue there is no distinction between the English used in Britain and the varieties used elsewhere, and absurd to argue that any reference to English must be a reference to British English. And these terms were around long before there were spell-checkers. The comment that it really only got to this because of spell-checkers is really very funny. Do some checking and you will find these terms have been around for a very long time.
Similarly the singular “their” has been around for centuries too. The list of great writers who have used it before the civil rights movement recommended it would fill many pages. It wasn’t until it began being used by feminists that conservatives started arguing it was wrong.
Also, in the context used here, idiomatic is standard. And who is it that formalized the language and decided what was and what was not correct? There is no official grammar of English and what grammar books there are don’t agree. On top of that the language is in a continual state of flux. The grammar of a language is derived from the language itself and frequency of use does make something correct.
November 20, 2011 at 6:47 pm
elevengoalosts
@StuartD
There are 62 million people in Britain and the official language is English. You would not find anyone there who would say they speak “British English”. In addition, there are many other countries in the world where people speak the English language (and some speak other languages there, of course), and they don’t call it British English either – such as New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Africa…the list is very long. In virtually all those cases, they say they can speak English. As far as I know – and I’m no expert like you – mainly it’s the US which refers to British English.
In many of those countries, and others – say, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, etc – they may speak the language with an American accent and spell accordingly, but they would never say they speak American English. Many may not even realise the differences which the Americans made to the original language.
Of course there’s a distinction between English and American English; the Americans made many changes to spelling and expressions – sometimes deliberately, sometimes by evolution, etc.
My comment about spell-checkers seems to have confused you. It was through their introduction that the choice of spelling (and other factors) sets, using word-processing software, allowed the user to apply certain choices – as in English and American English. Because it was American-designed software, the selection choice, inter alia, was American English and British English – but that choice of words was so written for the benefit of American users.
I’m not sure what you mean by “idiomatic” in the context of my post – I didn’t use the word.
As for formalisation, that occurred in British public schools, probably commencing in the latter part of the 18th century. Up until then, there wasn’t a formal structure to the English language, so it was set out. Latin and Greek was taught in most of those schools – languages which are very formalised.
Those schools were educating the sort of people who would advance into official positions of authority, in government and the diplomatic posts of the Empire. A consistent way of speaking, spelling, use of grammar, punctuation
and expression was very important in the roles they would hold.
Those schools sometimes produced their own language/grammar books, but there were also a number of language specialists who wrote them. Some of them were also published in the US and used in the schools there.
I’ve never been a prescriptivist, but was taught in that vein, because it was deemed necessary to give the pupils the agreed, standard form of the language. That doesn’t mean that the language does’t or must not evolve. However, by schools not maintaining the formality of language, in the earlier school classes, that existed up to the 60s and 70s, an increasing number of UK students today cannot write English which is even reasonably acceptable for academic and/or employment purposes. They have to be sent on “remedial courses”.
I totally disagree with your last sentence – I cannot accept that frequency of use makes something correct. I hope you’ve never tried to use that argument with an language academic or a logician. Are you suggesting that bad habits are good or acceptable if used frequently, or are you just winding us up?
November 20, 2011 at 2:48 pm
Mar Rojo
Is there only one English in the UK?
November 20, 2011 at 7:02 pm
elevengoalosts
Yes, there is only one standard language of English in the UK.
However, in Scotland and Wales, they do retain their original languages, which is spoken by a percentage of the locals. I’m not certain about whether there are many in Northern Ireland who speak the traditional Irish/ Gaelic language.
However, the UK is probably like many other countries, because it has many dialects – even in England..
Some dialects can be easily understood, but others can be a bit difficult to understand, even for some Brits themselves – and especially if the speaker has had a few drinks!
Even in each county or region, there are small, local differences. Language experts are often able to determine which town a person might have come from, based on dialect and use of certain (slang) words and expressions.
(Mar Rojo means Red Sea?).
November 20, 2011 at 10:43 pm
mike
> the Americans made many changes to spelling and expressions – sometimes deliberately, sometimes by evolution, etc.
You say this as if the English _spoken_ in England is identical with that which was spoken when colonists who became Americans set sail in the 1600s. (Spelling changes? Who cares? Spelling has as much relationship to language as scores do to music.)
>62 million
Why, that’s nearly pretty close to almost a fifth (20%) of the number of speakers of American English. Assuming (such is the assumption of rolling out a number like that) that you want to vote by numbers about which is the dominant dialect.
Anyway, this is an absurd discussion about nationalism (“my dialect is the best!”) and has nothing to do with linguistics.
November 20, 2011 at 11:52 pm
elevengoalosts
I make my points in what I try to assemble into a reasoned argument, and respond to your points.
For some reason, you want to get aggressive about it, and start raising “nationalism”.
It doesn’t matter what percentage of those who speak English in the UK represents as a percentage of the USA. The UK standard language is English, pure and simple – not British English or UKese, or whatever else an external wants to give it.
They speak French in Haiti, and possibly there are some slight differences from the French in France – I don’t know. The language in Mexico is Spanish and there are some differences with the Spanish pronunciation in Spain, but no one refers to Spanish Spanish, as opposed to Mexican Spanish. No one refers to French French for France’s language, any more than than Portugese Portugese.
The more you try to concoct that argument, the further you get away from logic, So are you really suggesting that scores have little relationship to music – of course not! So why write it?
Spelling, grammar, expression, punctuation, etc are very important components of a language, and not just the pronunciation or other parts.
For some reason you seem to dislike intensely having guidelines to a language, and maybe prefer a “free-for-all”, as if it doesn’t matter. Open slather, perhaps?
It doesn’t make me a hated prescriptivist because I do.
November 21, 2011 at 12:04 am
Mar Rojo
<>
That wasn’t my question, elevenGP, but it seems you are saying that Standard English is the only form that deserves, historically, to be labelled “English”, with no modifier. Am I right? Do you reserve the name unmodified word “English” only for Standard English that is used in the UK?
November 21, 2011 at 3:02 am
elevengoalosts
Your quote is from Wikipedia.
From Oxford Dictionaries:
English is the principal language of Great Britain, the US, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and many other countries. There are some 400 million native speakers, and it is the medium of communication for many millions more : it is the most widely used second language in the world. It belongs to the West Germanic group of Indo-European languages, though its vocabulary has been much influenced by Norman French and Latin.
I don’t think what I’ve written is inconsistent with that.
As for your other questions I suspect you’ve spent some time trawling around the internet to ask questions for which you believe that I might not know the answers.
I can provide answers, but what is the purpose? What does it matter about “the name for the English spoken in Britain before Standard English came along?”How is that relevant?
What is being used in the UK is English, or Standard English, if you prefer. If you wish to discuss another form of English, then it/they can be described with a modifier(s), as you say, such as American English. That latter version could just as easily have been called “American” – no one would have objected.
In Mexico, there are many languages used, but the de facto standard is Spanish. However, as we all know, that is a variety of that used in Spain. I’d be very confident that in Spain they would describe the Mexican use as non-standard Spanish, or perhaps Mexican Spanish. They’d describe their own language as Spanish or Standard Spanish. They would never accept a description of it being Spanish Spanish. The same attitude would apply in France and other countries.
November 21, 2011 at 12:08 am
Mar Rojo
Your definition of “English” is a tad folk-linguistics based, elevenGPs. Tell me, what was the name for the English spoken in Britain before Standard English came along?
November 21, 2011 at 12:09 am
Mar Rojo
Couldn’t be clearer than this:
“British English, or English (BrE, BE, en-GB[1]), is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere.[2] The Oxford English Dictionary applies the term to English “as spoken or written in the British Isles; esp[ecially] the forms of English usual in Great Britain”, reserving “Hiberno-English” for the “English language as spoken and written in Ireland”.”
November 24, 2011 at 4:40 pm
Mar Rojo
So Standard English is only spoken in the UK, right, 11goalposts? We cannot say that the Americans speak Standard English, right?
November 25, 2011 at 8:22 pm
Eugene
Everyone who speaks/uses the language may legitimately refer to it as “English” since the dialects are mutually intelligible. Standard English is a construct that applies appropriately in particular contexts of use, for example, publishing, academics, and broadcasting. The whole point of standardization is to enhance communication in wider contexts. It really isn’t about establishing some sort of “correct” English or the “real” English. Even though there are trivial differences between standard American and standard British English, those differences are not an impediment to mutual understanding.
There are, of course, contexts where it is appropriate to refer to British English or American English, particularly in second language teaching and in the marketing of ESL materials. Learners in Asian countries generally prefer American, while learners in Europe generally prefer British (I think), though again the differences aren’t particularly important. The results ultimately depend upon whose media you watch and read.
By the way, there are probably more distinct dialects in Great Britain than in the rest of the English speaking world. And, as some commenters have pointed out, the language spoken in England has changed just as much in the past 300 years as has the language spoken in North America.
It’s been an interesting discussion – not particularly heated in comparison to how these things usually go.
November 25, 2011 at 9:20 pm
StuartD
@elevengoalosts: You said: “In many of those countries, and others – say, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, etc – they may speak the language with an American accent and spell accordingly, but they would never say they speak American English.”
My dear chap,, that is exactly what they do do. I have tutored Japanese Students who are Adamant that they want to learn American English and not British English. I repeat that these terms are common in education, linguistics, and grammar.
The OED defines British English thus:
d.2.d {British English}: the English language as spoken or written in the British Isles; esp. the forms of English usual in Great Britain, as contrasted with those characteristic of the U.S.A. or other English-speaking countries.
There are many varieties of English and there are standard abbreviations for them. I speak NZE, for example.
You all said: “I cannot accept that frequency of use makes something correct. I hope you’ve never tried to use that argument with an language academic or a logician. Are you suggesting that bad habits are good or acceptable if used frequently, or are you just winding us up?”
It is the language academics who taught me the argument. There is simply no argument about it. Even the most rigid prescriptivists accept that usages that were once considered incorrect become standard if used frequently enough. If a significant majority of literate speakers from all walks life use a particular form and it is used over a long period of time then it will become standard, just as the meanings of words alter through usage. Didn’t you say yourself that language evolves? If language didn’t change we’d still be speaking and writing the way Chaucer did.
November 28, 2011 at 8:39 am
Gabe
A lot of this has become quibbling over what I see as a very very minor point — what label to assign to a set of dialects — so let me offer my brief thought in an attempt to smooth this over and return to more interesting debates.
I say that I speak English, as I say about a variety of friends whose various accents and grammars render their form of English at times unintelligible to me. “English” is a general term, useful for distinguishing the language that all of us are writing in from other substantially different languages like French or Chamorro.
The problem with insisting, in a discussion of differences between dialects that fall under the same shared banner of English, that one dialect be referred to as “English” is twofold. First, it’s confusing as to whether you’re talking about something shared across all dialects or specific to the “English” dialect. Second, it’s chauvinistic, because it implies that there is something superior, or more honest, or more justified, about that dialect as opposed to all others. Calling it “standard English” only intensifies that second point.
elevengoalposts, I’m sorry if you think it’s not right that you have to qualify your language as “British” or “UK” English, but it’s going to be really hard to have a conversation with you if you don’t, because to us non-UK speakers, it’s going to feel like you’re always thinking, “Well, maybe in your inferior dialect that’s okay, but …”
November 28, 2011 at 10:37 pm
elevengoalposts
@GABE
Thanks for the response.
I was drawn to this site because it specifically distanced itself from prescriptivism and related websites, where it was claimed that there were adherents to punctuation and grammar – in the main – which were overly fussy and allowed no flexibility with the language. I applaud the intention of Motivated Grammar.
On the other hand, I have expressed views which have clearly been disagreed with strongly, but perhaps mainly on the differences in language uses between the USA and the UK.
It has always been very interesting to read about the development of expression and spelling from historical times (from the OED, in particular . I think that’s very relevant, but can be over applied. As I’ve said before, there was effectively little/no formal English spelling at all until Dr Johnson’s first dictionary. Further, was no formality on expression, and even punctuation was only being developed.
Formälisation didn’t really develop until something over two hundred tears ago, principally under the English “public schools” system. There were, of course, enormous benefits to that.
Unfortunately, in recent times, some people have been taking some very minor (and, perhaps, subjective) points and insisting there was no room for flexibility – I disagree with that stance.
As for English versus American English, I’ve expressed my views here, but I seem to have incited strong/aggressive responses (involving “nationalism” and “chauvinism”), which I don’t think are justified.
I seem to be in a minority (of one), so my views on Standard English will only inflame readers, it appears. Whether I referred to Standard English as opposed to American English, doesn’t imply that one is superior or inferior to the other.
However, I think it’s clear from your last para, that’s there is a strong view from yourself (and others) that non-Americans can have a view of superiority on “dialect”.
I think that’s unjustified, but you’re concerned about it, clearly, and your readers have similar views. Unfortunately, it seems there’s more than a bit of thin-skinned reaction involved, with people circling their wagons (English – waggons).
Therefore, in order to avoid conflict, it would be better if I no longer access your website and select another which doesn’t take an “us and them” approach.
Regards, elevengoalposts
November 29, 2011 at 5:36 pm
Gabe
Stan: I forgot to mention that you raised a great point. In fact, there’s some really interesting differences depending on definiteness. “One/a reason why” is way more popular than “one/a reason that”, as opposed to the nearly equal distribution of “the reason why” and “the reason that”. I’ve got a couple of ideas about the reason underlying it, but I’m waaaaay too lazy to investigate it.
elevengoalposts: I don’t mean to push you out; it’s better to have an intense discussion that leads to a better solution than a friendly one that leaves us all agreeing on the wrong solution. What we call different dialects doesn’t really matter, at least not when compared to more important matters like whether it’s “the reason why” or “the reason that”. :)
Of course, that said, this is very much a “us versus them” site, given the motto. Sometimes you need a place to vent, or at least I do. If we’re harsh, that’s probably why.
December 5, 2011 at 3:16 pm
Mar Rojo
Elevengoalposts has presented the same argument and reacted in the same way on many other forums. I wouldn’t worry too much about his/her departure.
December 17, 2011 at 9:36 am
Linguistrix
[…] there for good reason—phonology acts like an error-correcting code, and Gabe Doyle here has an interesting argument about how redundancy in language might even be an […]
February 26, 2012 at 4:27 pm
June
“The reason why” is WRONG. Wrong, wrong , wrong. WRONG!!!!!!
have some respect, will you please?????!!!!
February 26, 2012 at 4:31 pm
June
It is very redundant and sounds STUPID !!! And THAT is the reason Or should I say “the reason reason”??? Or “that is why, why” ??
Furthermore, just because most people get it wrong, doesn’t mean we should all conform to being idiots!!!! Just Speak correctly !
June 1, 2012 at 10:20 am
Liz
OK, I’ll stop complaining every time I hear it. By the way, you might also defend the S/V agreement in your example “Each of the four words in that sentence are marked as plural.” Maybe the “person who left their wet swimsuit” can speak to agreement of personal pronouns also.
Thank you for a very convincing argument.
July 3, 2012 at 5:50 pm
Whys, Becauses, e um pouco mais! « Teacher Fabio
[…] a esclarecer um pouco estas questões, eu trouxe a vocês duas sugestões de artigos. O primeiro, The Reason Why There’s Nothing Wrong, fala exatamente sobre a estrutura utilizada em seu título, cuja gramaticidade é questionada às […]
July 6, 2012 at 2:06 pm
jubadub
Actually, this article is mistaken: simply put, “reason why” is not just a redundancy: redundancy is fine for giving emphasis, but the problem is that “reason why” is an incoherently-constructed sentence.Saying “that’s the reason the reason is *insert reasoning here*
Summary: “That’s the reaosn why” is incorrect, and so is this article. For those that got too used to the expression, it’s best to migrate to “That’s why.”.
Hope that helps all confused minds out there! =)
August 26, 2012 at 5:58 am
Bob
Elevengoalpoast I enjoyrd ur discussion. U made de best points. The ”reason why” is clumsy. I dont like to use dat expression :)
September 24, 2012 at 12:47 am
Olafemiwa olamide samuel
Why do people use “reason why”in thier statement or constructive sentence.Is it acceptable.
November 2, 2012 at 2:10 pm
Emily
Redundancy is bad in a newspaper because space is valuable. I always remove the “why” following “reason” in a story because it wastes space
November 24, 2012 at 9:04 pm
Barney
What ‘jubadub’ said above is similar to what I was about to say:
No one (apart from that one person this article quotes) thought “the reason why” was redundant — the only reason why (just kidding ;-D ) people even find this article in the first place is because “the reason why” doesn’t make sense!!! Nobody cares whether it’s redundant!!! Why would you have ever thought that in the first place?!
April 11, 2013 at 7:26 pm
Tom
How about no “reason why” or “reason that”? How about just “reason”, as in “the reason I called”? Why do I have to say “reason why I called” or “reason that I called”?
Reason implies not only “why”, but also “that” and “because”. My issue isn’t that it is redundant. It is unnecessary.
May 8, 2013 at 2:06 pm
Arrant Pedantry » Blog Archive » The Reason Why This Is Correct
[…] defending the construction, Gabe Doyle at Motivated Grammar compares it to the redundancy in The person who left their wet swimsuit on my books is going to […]
July 31, 2013 at 8:20 pm
Tom Valois
Of course “the reason why” is redundant. So is “the reason that”. What is wrong with the word “reason” appearing by itself? “The reason I called you” means the same thing as “the reason why I called you” or “the reason that I called you”. Replacing “why” with “that” merely continues the redundancy. If the argument is whether “reason why” or “reason that” should be preferred, they are both wrong. Just say “reason”, without “why” or “that”, and it should suffice.
If someone thinks I am wrong, and can give me a sentence where “why” or “that” will add meaning or grammatical accuracy to the word “reason”, please let me know.
As far as why it matters whether it is redundant, I’ll have to revert back to my college years (not just revert, but revert BACK), and ask my then co-conspirators (not just conspirators, but CO-conspirators) about whether there are any old adages (as opposed to all those NEW adages) about it.
July 31, 2013 at 8:30 pm
Tom Valois
Oh, and by the way…
Jonathan, one of earlier responders to this post – did he really just say “refer back” in a discussion about redundancy?
July 31, 2013 at 8:48 pm
Tom Valois
I should have read all of the responses to the original post before responding. A swimsuit can be dry. There is nothing wrong with saying “wet swimsuit”. However, there is something wrong with saying “their wet swimsuit” when you are referring to a single person. It should have been “his or her” wet swimsuit, or even just “his” or “her” by itself, because English has become de-genderized, allowing for the substitution of a gender-positive pronoun in a gender-neutral situation.
As far as redundancy goes, a dry swimsuit is possible. I actually have one in my dresser right now. But a “reason” that isn’t also “why”? I have not come across that yet.
October 6, 2013 at 10:40 pm
jamooklek@yahoo.com
If you want to sound like a half-educated person, you will say “the reason why.” You will also say, “a couple years ago” – as the writer did in this article, instead of “a couple of years ago.”
November 20, 2013 at 8:04 am
Kw Jung
I happen to be here. I don’t understand why ‘why’ is redundant. Let’s see the following sentences. “The reason why I called this meeting is our sales suffered a huge setback last month.” “There are lots of reasons why it happened last month.” “Also, there are reasons we can fix, eliminate or improve and there are reasons we can do nothing about.” “And there is a reason we should just forget.” “Like the reason a customer tore our flagship jacket in public.” Can you see something? Reason (that) …. and reason why are DIFFERENT.
June 17, 2014 at 5:04 pm
Emma
“The reason is because” is incorrect as “because” introduces an adverbial clause of reason, and cannot introduce a noun clause.
“The reason why” is incorrect because “why” is not a relative pronoun, so it cannot introduce an adjectival clause. Only relative pronouns such as “which, who, who, that” can be used. Redundancy is an added concern, but not the main error.
June 17, 2014 at 5:06 pm
Emma
*which, who, whom, that
July 17, 2014 at 11:17 am
Learn to identify needless words and promote clarity | Pros Write
[…] is whether redundancy makes the message more meaningful or memorable. And linguist Gabe Doyle at Motivated Grammar reminds us that redundancy is important precisely because communication is a noisy system. The […]
October 29, 2015 at 12:26 pm
Coding Approaches That Foil Russian Localization | Into Russian
[…] from the form for 5-10. Why such complexity, you may ask? Some theories of language postulate that redundancy, or repeating parts of the message, helps the listener or language learner catch the message if […]
May 30, 2018 at 8:47 am
Miguel González
Using the grammar rules to support or disregard an English grammar rule is sort of 18th-century linguistics. Let me give another Spanish rule you would not dare to use to argue in favor of a “wrong” English sentence:
Spanish: No sé nada.
English: I don’t know nothing.
Or it would like saying that it would correct in Spanish to say something like:
Spanish: Yo sé nada /Yo no sé alguna cosa.
English: I know nothing / I don’t know anything.
Each language is a linguistic system on its own.
May 30, 2018 at 8:48 am
Miguel González
Using the Spanish grammar rules to support or disregard an English grammar rule is sort of 18th-century linguistics. Let me give another Spanish rule you would not dare to use to argue in favor of a “wrong” English sentence:
Spanish: No sé nada.
English: I don’t know nothing.
Or it would like saying that it would correct in Spanish to say something like:
Spanish: Yo sé nada /Yo no sé alguna cosa.
English: I know nothing / I don’t know anything.
Each language is a linguistic system on its own.