*while at the same time.
“While at the same time” is a common redundancy — e.g.:
o “Motivate them to keep selling the company while at the same time [read ‘while’] taking credit for their particular accomplishment.” Mark H. McCormack, What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School 194 (1984).
o “He would not be the first national leader to talk peace while at the same time [read ‘while’] encouraging those who persist in terrorism.” Alan Dershowitz, “Arafat Speaks of Peace as He Uses Terrorism,” Buffalo News, 31 Oct. 1994, at B3.
*Invariably inferior form.
For information about the Language-Change Index click here.
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Quotation of the Day: “The teacher of English is the arbiter of usage. Who else? After all, it is the English teacher who receives the daily questions about usage from students, other faculty members, and the general public. I suggest that a large portion of our difficulties in handling usage questions comes not from unduly restrictive rules or the lack of reliable references, but from our failure to man our posts properly.” V. Louise Higgins, “Approaching Usage in the Classroom” (1960), in Readings in Applied English Linguistics 330, 331 (Harold Byron Allen ed., 2d ed. 1964).
