Can i use the same word twice in a sentence

True or False: It is not grammatically correct to use the same word twice in the same sentence.

False!

Yes, there are some situations where it is not correct to use a word twice in the same sentence. We will examine this more closely in a moment. Most of the time, however, you can absolutely use the same word two (or more) times in the same sentence. Reread the opening sentence in this article–both “same” and “the” are used twice.

Sometimes it is a mistake.

First, let’s look at an example of when it actually is incorrect to use a word twice in the same sentence. See if you can find the error in the sentence below:

I sent the report to Javier, but he is out of the the office today.

Did you spot the mistake? When this type of error happens, the writer is usually making changes to a sentence and somehow ends up with “the the” or two other short, identical words right next to each other. It’s more of a typo than anything else. Once your eye catches the mistake, it’s pretty easy to fix.

Sometimes it is grammatically correct, but it sounds awkward.

Consider the following examples:

Please bring last month’s meeting minutes to the meeting on Thursday.

We are in the process of revising the employees’ vacation request process.

Our business is getting a lot of new business lately.

The above sentences are all grammatically correct, but they need some work in terms of style. The sentences with “meeting” and “process” will be easier to understand if those words are used just one time. Meanwhile, the first “business” can be taken out and replaced with the synonym “company”, which has the same meaning. Again, it isn’t wrong to use those words twice, but it will sound better if they are used only once.

Here are the three sentences again, with a few minor tweaks:

Please bring last month’s minutes to the meeting on Thursday.

We are revising the employees’ vacation request process.

Our company is getting a lot of new business lately.

Sometimes it is necessary.

There are times when you need to use a word two or more times in a sentence in order to make your meaning clear. Let’s look at one example:

Jeremy and Andrew will both be at the party, but Jeremy has to leave early because he has a basketball game.

If we don’t use “Jeremy” twice in the above sentence, the reader will be confused about which person has to leave the party early.

Here are a few other examples:

I have five cats and three dogs, but only the cats sleep in my room.

The pain in Grandpa’s foot isn’t as bad as the pain in his shoulder.

Laura was supposed to send me the tax documents and the insurance forms, but so far I have only received the insurance forms.

It is often necessary to use short, common words two or more times in the same sentence, especially articles (“the”, “a”, “an”, “some”) and prepositions (“of”, “at”, “to”, “in”). However, you want to be careful with conjunctions (“and”, “but”, “or”, “so”), which we covered in last week’s article.

In general, if you see that you have used a word two (or more) times in the same sentence, read through it again. Does the sentence sound awkward? Is there another way to write the sentence? Is there a synonym you could use to reduce repetition? Will the meaning be unclear if you don’t use that word more than once? If you still aren’t sure, click the link below to get some help from the editors at TextRanch.

Writers are often advised to avoid using the same word twice in one sentence. But that’s really an oversimplified statement.

If you use the same word repeatedly, a sentence can sound repetitive and awkward. In such cases, it’s a good idea to look for synonyms of the word you’re tempted to repeat, or to rephrase the sentence. If I started to write, «I drove my car to the car dealership where the car salesman sold me a new car», while, that just sounds really bad, way too repetitive. I’d probably recast it to something like, «I drove my car to the auto dealership where the salesman sold me a new vehicle.»

But there are many cases where there’s no need to worry about repeating words. Short, common words, like articles, prepositions, and pronouns, can be repeated much more freely before a sentence starts to get awkward. Few will even notice that you used «the» or «she» three times in a sentence.

Sometimes you want to deliberately use a word repeatedly for emphasis or parallelism. For example, the phrase «Happy wife, happy life» is pointed precisely because it uses the word «happy» twice (plus a rhyme). It would be considerably less catchy if phrased, «Happy wife, pleasant existence.»

The wording in your example sentence is a bit odd, as Deadrat points out. If it was hard to make the characters bigger, but someone still went to the effort, would they cease to be easier to read?

In any case, your use of easy/easier sounds like a mild parallelism. If that was your intention, you probably should make it easy/easy or easier/easier. If that was not your intention, you might want to choose a different word. But «easy» is a short and common enough word that it doesn’t sound all that awkward.

using the same word twice in the same sentence

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luckyguy

Posted: Friday, December 16, 2016 6:07:35 PM

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Back to top hedy mmm

Posted: Friday, December 16, 2016 8:36:13 PM

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Back to top FounDit

Posted: Saturday, December 17, 2016 10:42:03 AM

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I agree with heddy, but wanted to add that you could use «were» twice in the second sentence, and it wouldn’t sound strange to me at all. I would think you were trying to emphasize the fact that they were also the most expensive. That would be a reason for using it again.

We often drop a word when it comes too close to the same word in a sentence, but there is no rule about it. Saying it twice is just something we get used to doing at an early age, especially if we want to emphasize something. So you just have to listen to native speakers to learn the pattern.

Back to top Ashwin Joshi

Posted: Saturday, December 17, 2016 11:40:01 AM

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heddy mom is correct

Back to top hedy mmm

Posted: Saturday, December 17, 2016 2:00:44 PM

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Back to top FounDit

Posted: Saturday, December 17, 2016 3:31:45 PM

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A thousand apologies for getting your name wrong, hedy. I am surprised you don’t capitalize it, however, since it is a proper name.

Btw, I knew about Hedy Lamarr, of course, but didn’t know those facts about her being an inventor. A very interesting lady, and quite accomplished.

Back to top Drag0nspeaker

Posted: Saturday, December 17, 2016 3:55:32 PM

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Back to top hedy mmm

Posted: Saturday, December 17, 2016 4:50:10 PM

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Back to top Ashwin Joshi

Posted: Sunday, December 18, 2016 9:22:03 AM

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Oh….soooooooooooooo sorry to add an additional ‘d’. Unintentional. Pl excuse.

Back to top Users browsing this topic Guest

I’m sorry if this topic has been raised before, but I did a search and couldn’t find anything.

My question is, is it ever OK to use the same word twice in a sentence? I’ve just done it in the previous sentence :redface2:! For effect of course! :smug:

I realise you shoud probably try to find an alternative, but when you’ve done that and can’t come up with anything, is it OK then? Is it ever acceptable?

The word I’m referring to is the word and. I suppose I could just cut the sentence down, but then the meaning may be lost, if you see what I mean.

Here’s the sentence I’m referring to here, where and is used twice:

[FONT=»]We sped past a stonewalled house in a thickly frosted field and I thought how peaceful it looked and so far removed from Belfast town centre [/FONT]

The sentence doesn’t seem to work half as well when I take out the and, instead using a comma.

Thanks by the way.