Word Court
Atlantic, The, June, 2006 by Barbara Wallraff
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C raig R . N unn , of Nashville, Tenn., writes: “I’ve become increasingly intolerant of what must be the most common redundancy in our language: report back. Is this now an accepted usage? My friends tell me I’m just being pedantic and ask that I report back to them with your answer.”
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You’re hardly alone in disliking report back, but I suspect your feelings arise from a misunderstanding. None of the usage manuals I checked object to report back. The people who do object argue that it’s redundant, because the prefix re- means “back.” But that isn’t the only thing re- means. Consider, for example, reform and resign—or re-form and re-sign, in which re- means “again.” Consider “They released the bobcat back into the wild.” And consider the difference between “They asked me to report to them” and “They asked me to report back to ...
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