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.
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.
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Posted: Saturday, November 11, 2017 3:36:49 PM |
Joined: 2/17/2015
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I am going to make up two pairs of sentences below.
(1a) There is only 15ml of detergent in the bottle in the kitchen.
(1b) There is only 15ml of detergent in the bottle for the kitchen.
(2a) There is a mistake in question 5 in the physics solution manual.
(2b) There is a mistake for question 5 in the physics solution manual.
I am using «in» twice in the a’s.
Does that sound odd to native English speakers? If it does, should I change «in» to «for» as shown in the b’s?
Please help me. Thanks a lot.
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Posted: Saturday, November 11, 2017 3:51:44 PM |
Joined: 8/7/2017
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Both (1a) and (2a) are normal and common.
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Posted: Saturday, November 11, 2017 4:06:34 PM |
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There’s nothing wrong with using «in» twice in the same sentence. In fact, trying to avoid that repetition would effectively spoil the sentences.
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Posted: Saturday, November 11, 2017 4:09:43 PM |
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Yes, you use it as many times as you need.
The bottle is in the kitchen and the detergent is in the bottle.
‘for’ changes the meaning.
If you have just bought two cans of air freshener, and they are still in your shopping bag, you can say where they are supposed to go (what their
purpose
is). WHere they are destined for.
One is for the bathroom and one is for the kitchen. But once you take them out of the bag and put them in the bathroom or in the kitchen, they are in that room — in the kitchen.
The detergent is in a bottle in a box in a cupboard in the kitchen.
‘for’ often implies purpose. It doesn’t work for contents of a question.
If something exists within or inside something, it is
in
it.
The mistake is in the question.
The question is in the book.
There is mistake in a sentence in a question in one of the tests in the physics book.
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Posted: Monday, November 13, 2017 5:29:27 AM |
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You can even have two words like ‘in’, in a row. . . 
Is there a cupboard to put the detergent in, in the kitchen?
When you speak such a sentence, the individual phrases are separated by changing tone of voice, pauses and so on.
It does not sound so bad at all — though one might
try
to re-phrase the sentence.
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Posted: Monday, November 13, 2017 5:52:46 AM |
Joined: 6/14/2009
Posts: 18,351
Neurons: 59,731
Location: Brighton, England, United Kingdom
Robjen — there seem to have been a number of posts lately about whether one can use the same word twice in a sentence.
There is no grammatical rule which says one can’t. It’s purely a stylistic matter.
However, even if there were a rule, it would be almost impossible to abide by. The most commonly used words in English are prepositions, pronouns….all the «little» words which are like the nuts and bolts which hold a car together: — they are small but important. We HAVE to use them more than once in many sentences because they are performing different functions and are necessary to our understanding.
The thing about using the same word twice is *mainly* about adjective and adverbs, e.g.
«My parents took us to a lovely restaurant, where we had a lovely meal.» There are so many positive adjectives in English, a person appears not to understand this if they can’t think of any word other than «lovely», so we advise them to get rid of one.Besides which, it sounds boring to repeat the same one.
But it pertains to nouns as well: «We set out for the beach. When we got to the beach we parked the car. Then we walked from the car to the beach. Once on the beach we laid down our beach-towels for a nap.» That sort of thing comes into the «don’t use the same word» thing. As you can see, it makes it childish and boring to read.
Whereas Drago’s sentence «Is there a cupboard to put the detergent in, in the kitchen?» with two words exactly the same next to each other, could never be called boring!
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Posted: Monday, November 13, 2017 6:40:39 AM |
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Don’t go in inn in which there is no food.
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Posted: Monday, November 13, 2017 7:25:32 AM |
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Or a pub with no beer!
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Posted: Monday, November 13, 2017 7:41:35 AM |
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Of dear! I have a fear there’s no beer in here.
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Posted: Monday, November 13, 2017 1:28:28 PM |
Joined: 6/14/2009
Posts: 18,351
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Location: Brighton, England, United Kingdom
Ah Drago,
«Old Billy the blacksmith, first time in his life
Has gone home cold sober, to his darling wife
He walks in the kitchen, she says you’re early my dear?
Then he breaks down and tells her, the pubs got no beer.»
(My favourite verse)
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Posted: Monday, November 13, 2017 1:39:47 PM |
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It’s funny — it is so obviously Australian in phrasing and sentiment — but it is stated to be ‘traditional Irish’ or ‘Country & Western’.
I guess it’s because the most popular versions were by Slim Dusty and The Dubliners.
Apparently it was true. There was a shortage and the composer rode twenty miles from his farm to the pub, and found that they had no beer — so he went home and wrote the original poem.
[image not available]
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Posted: Monday, November 13, 2017 7:04:33 PM |
Joined: 6/14/2009
Posts: 18,351
Neurons: 59,731
Location: Brighton, England, United Kingdom
Geez, Drago — fancy knowing about Slim Dusty? The memories that name — and that song — bring crowding back of outback Queensland!
Not that I’m a C & W fan; but hell’s teeth — the distances of flat, featureless scrub, or desert where you could drive for an entire day without seeing another vehicle on the road!
And the only music you could pick up for mile after sweaty mile was Slim Dusty and Slim Dusty wannabees on all the very few «local» radio stations you picked up.
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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.