Right question on biology, but full of tautology

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What you need to know:

  • Tautology is repetition in the objective side of your sentence of exactly the same idea as you have already expressed in the subjective side of it.

  • To write like that is to tautologise because the reason for anything is the same thing as the why of it.

  • Such language is unfortunate coming from a person who claims that information is his or her stock-in-trade. 

In a letter that the Daily Nation editor published prominently on Tuesday, April 17, a reader posed a fundamental question with regard not only to language but also to biology. The reader wanted to know: “Am I the reason why my wife and I don’t have children?” 

It was a question from a well brought-up male mind because it does not assume — as all male chauvinists do  — that the woman is always the one to blame whenever she fails to conceive. No, do not expect a safe scientific answer even from me because I am neither a biologist nor a medical doctor.

UNFORTUNATE

However, even from the point of view of language, it is not a very well-thought-out question. It reminds me of a mockery by a great English poet concerning the ordinary run of human beings:  Wrote he: “Theirs not to reason why/Theirs but to do and die.” That should powerfully mind the reader that the reason for anything or for any event is the same thing, more or less, as the why of it.

That is why the above question was so unfortunate. No, if the question is purely bio-logic-al, then I have no safe answer because biology is not my expertise. The English language is what I claim some ability to teach. Thus what concerns me there is only the language in which the man has couched his question.

REPETITION

No, as expressed by the journalist, the poet’s advice simply will not help. Ours must not be to do and die. No, ours must be to do and live. Why? So that we can do it again and again — and do it even better — whenever occasion demands our service. That is why a question like “Am I the reason why?” is called tautology

To write like that is to tautologise because the reason for anything is the same thing as the why of it. That is why such language is unfortunate coming from a person who claims that information is his or her stock-in-trade.  As I have reminded you here about an octillion times before, tautology is repetition in the objective side of your sentence of exactly the same idea as you have already expressed in the subjective side of it.

CONCEPTION

However, I cannot give my readers any safe answer as to why your wife does not conceive. Why not? Because that is a bio-chemical question and, in our national or even international division of labour, bio-chemistry is not my responsibility. No, assuming that it is of vital importance to us, the language of England is the only thing that I purport to teach my readers.

Of course, the problem of conceiving may lie either in a hitch in a woman’s biology or in you, the male, as the supposed carrier and supplier of the agency of conception. But, of course, it will be a medical doctor’s responsibility to give you a good answer to your question and good advice as to what to do about the problem. 

Philip Ochieng is a retired journalist. [email protected]