The latest post over at Copyblogger confirms something preachers always knew:
Repetition is ‘a linguistically valid way of increasing the effectiveness of a message’.
The key example is “free gift”.
Apparently, split-testing indicates that “free gift” outperforms “gift” — even though a gift is free by definition.
This isn’t just about emphasis.
Where a technically redundant combination of words (“free gift”, “PIN number”, etc) works better than the more streamlined version, ‘those words become necessary, and perhaps even essential, to the success of a message’.
Worth remembering for those of us who are in to communicating — and communicating about the “free gift” of God’s grace in particular!
The SMH letters page has been celebrating tautology all week and Saturday had a response from the Dean, Phillip Jensen with examples from a sermon: http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/a-clash-of-global-and-local-issues-20110415-1di33.html
Spooky! And here I was thinking I’d started to go native here in Melbourne. I guess it’s true what they say: you can take the boy out of Sydney…