Tautophrase

A tautophrase is a phrase or sentence that repeats an idea in the same words. The name was coined by William Safire in The New York Times.

Examples include:

• "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do." (John Wayne)
• "It ain't over 'till it's over" (Yogi Berra)
• "What's done is done." (Shakespeare's Macbeth)
• "I am that I am." (God, Exodus 3:14)
• "Tomorrow is tomorrow" (Antigone (Sophocles))
• "A rose is a rose is a rose." (Gertrude Stein)
• "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." (Sigmund Freud)
• "A man's a man for a' that." (Robert Burns)
• "I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam!" (Popeye)
• "Cars are cars." (Paul Simon song title)
• "Let bygones be bygones."
• "Facts are facts."
• "A deal is a deal is a deal."
• "Once it's gone it's gone."
• "It is what it is."
• "Boys will be boys."
• "A win is a win."
• "You do you."
• "A la guerre comme à la guerre" — A French phrase literally meaning "at war as at war", and figuratively roughly equivalent to the English phrase "All's fair in love and war"
• Qué será, será or che será, será — grammatically incorrect English loan from the Italian, meaning "Whatever will be, will be."
• "Call a spade a spade."
• "Once you’re committed, you’re committed."
• "What wins out wins out."
• "You can only plan if you have a plan."
• "I don’t care how much you know, if you get caught in a fire, you’re caught in a fire."
• "Befehl ist Befehl" ("an order is an order")

See also

• Ploce (figure of speech)
• Repetition (rhetorical device)
• Tautology
• Platitude

References

• Safire, William (2006). "On language: Tautophrases" The New York Times, May 7, 2006.