generic

xkcdexplained:

In case you did not know: a tautology is a statement that is necessarily true, based only on the facts presented in the statement.

While applying for colleges, the author noticed the vague tautology of showing your honor by joining a club that shows you are honorable. With this keen observation, he invents a hypothetical and comical “tautology club.” This club’s activities, as seen in the last panel, consist of saying humorous tautologies at each other.

Also, the third member (from the left) of the club is Jason from the (non-web) comic strip FoxTrot.

Yeah, but there’s a distinction between logical and rhetorical tautologies. A couple of months ago I was trying to point out a tautology in an argument I was having with a coworker. But I couldn’t think of the word.

“You doing that thing. You’re using …. what’s that word? The word that means… the word?”

“It’s, you know, starts with a T?”

“It’s like, um, circular, um, redundant—fuck!”

Torture. And then I was in a coffeeshop and this popped up on my screen and I shouted “TAUTOLOGY!” with something close to relief and everyone stared at me.