Thursday, February 12, 2009

Tautology and Teleology

Hmmm.

I thought that these two words were similar, but they are nothing like each other. The word I wanted was tautology. That means:

tautology is an unnecessary or unessential (and usually unintentional) repetition of meaning, using different and dissimilar words that effectively say the same thing twice (often originally from different languages). It is often regarded or thought of as a fault of style and was defined by Fowler as "saying the same thing twice".


Whereas teleology, which I seem to have spelled wrongly, means:

an argument for the existence of God or a creator based on perceived evidence of order, purpose, design, or direction — or some combination of these — in nature. The word "teleological" is derived from the Greek word telos, meaning "end" or "purpose".



So nothing at all alike, then. Never mind, they say that a daily advancement in knowledge is good for you! Well, it's good for me!

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