If a sentence contains 'long-lasting durability,' is it redundant?
For example: Robust plastic construction ensures long-lasting durability.
Long-lasting and durability, do they mean the same thing?
Thank you
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Vocabulary.com - Use the noun durability to describe the quality of permanence or strength that keeps something working or holds it together. Your parents' thirty year marriage has durability, and your sturdy old car that keeps on running mile after mile also has durability. The Latin root word, durabilis, means "lasting or permanent," and comes from durare, "to last or harden."– FumbleFingersNov 18, 2019 at 16:04
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... FF's 'your sturdy old car that keeps on running mile after mile also has durability' shows that 'durability' is [sometimes] used in a non-absolute way (the car will not be running in another 200 years). So it is reasonable to qualify 'durability'. But I'd find a different intensifier. '... ensures that they are highly durable.'?– Edwin AshworthNov 18, 2019 at 16:12
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@EdwinAshworth: So we should reserve "durable" for things that really last a long time? Such as xenon-124, which apparently has a half-life one trillion times longer than the age of the universe.– FumbleFingersNov 18, 2019 at 17:13
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2 Answers
It can be redundant, but not always.
When being used in scientific writing to describe a physical property, you substantiate it with some sort of measurement or quality descriptor. "Durability" is the attribute being measured. "Long-lasting" is the measure of how durable it is.
If a plastic construction only held together for a matter of seconds before falling apart, I could still say it is durable. I just left off the important measure of it being "not very" durable and having "short-lasting" durability relative to what one would expect.
When used in everyday writing, "durability" does imply long-lasting or strong.
Robust plastic construction ensures long-lasting durability
Long-longisting durability is an example of redundancy.
I think it is Indian English and is an example of tautology.
So the correct sentence may be:
Robust plastic construction ensures durability.
Durability means the ability to withstand wear, pressure, or damage.
or
The fact of something continuing to be used without getting damaged.
Here is the link.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/durability
answered Nov 18, 2019 at 16:18
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You have cited here a meaning for "durable" and not durability. Durability as how I imagine it to be (and similar to how you'd say of any word with suffix "ability" -- combustibility, disability, inflexibility, etc.) is a degree to which something is durable. Nov 19, 2019 at 16:40
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@ Jitesh.When the meaning of durable is clear, we can understand the meaning of the noun durability.The Dictionary entries show only the meanings of adjectives.Anyhow, it is Indian English and redundant Nov 19, 2019 at 16:45
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Inadequate data or logic to back your claim, @Englishmonger. The meaning of adjective doesn't automatically infer the meaning of its noun. Nov 20, 2019 at 9:53
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The usage for suffix "-ability" can be stated as, "used with adjectives ending in ‘-able’ to make nouns meaning a particular quality." The emphasis is on "particular quality"; it therefore denotes a sense of degree the noun can take of its related adjective. Source: macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/ability_2 (Indian English, really? How about this: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20648442) Nov 20, 2019 at 10:03
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1Some examples of tautology are accepted and even preferred in English. I myself use them in some contexts. Nov 20, 2019 at 16:16