When using the word disseminate, is it redundant to say "throughout" afterwards, since the definition of disseminate is "to spread/disperse throughout"?
1 Answer
If the use of "throughout" doesn't expand or explain the word disseminate, then it might be redundant.
Explanation:
Redundancy is when the same information is expressed in two or more ways.
While it's difficult to say if something is redundant or not without a sample sentence, I'll answer this way - if the use of "throughout" doesn't expand or explain the word disseminate, then it might be redundant. I see your point in that "disseminate" means to spread. "Throughout", then, would be used to describe how it spreads.
For example, I could write:
While at work, Pat felt it was his job to disseminate juicy gossip.
Were I to write instead:
While at work, Pat felt it was his job to disseminate juicy gossip throughout the office. - this could be redundant (because while there might be an expectation that Pat would spread gossip throughout the office and therefore the phrase is redundant, maybe we need to know definitively that he is - which then means we're being told something new, which means it's not)
If however, "throughout" was used to explain Pat's dissemination, perhaps like this:
While at work, Pat felt it was his job to disseminate juicy gossip throughout the personnel office, but management was never to know.
Or
While at work, Pat felt it was his job to disseminate juicy gossip throughout the day, not just at break time around the water cooler. - these are definitely not redundant - they are new information describing the spreading of information.
I hope this helps!
