Tautophrase

A tautophrase is a phrase or sentence that tautologically defines a term by repeating that term. The word was coined in 2006 by William Safire in The New York Times.

Examples include:

• "Brexit means Brexit" (Theresa May)
• "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)
• "Tomorrow is tomorrow" (Sophocles' Antigone)
• "A rose is a rose is a rose" (Gertrude Stein)
• "Facts are facts"
• "Enough is enough"
• "Let bygones be bygones"
• "A deal is a deal is a deal"
• "Once it's gone, it's gone"
• "It is what it is"
• "If it works, it works"
• "If you know, you know"
• "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 — English loan from Spanish and Italian respectively (although these phrases are ungrammatical in those languages), meaning "Whatever will be, will be."
• "Call a spade a spade"
• "Once you’re committed, you’re committed"
• "What will be, will be"
• "What wins out wins out"
• "I don’t care how much you know, if you get caught in a fire, you’re caught in a fire"
• "Game is game"
• "Nothing changes if nothing changes"

See also

• Ploce (figure of speech) – Rhetorical device
• Repetition (rhetorical device) – Poetic device
• Tautology (language) – In literary criticism, repeating an idea
• Platitude – Trite, prosaic, or cliché truism
• Thought-terminating cliché – Commonly used phrase used to quell cognitive dissonance

References

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