My weirdest Reddit thread (so far)

So, somebody put up a guide on the worse used cars to buy. It was pretty terrible, with no quoted sources, so I replied with this response…

Where has this information come from (“Annual Auto Surveys” is a bit too generic)? It appears to be US participants. How many? How “much-worse-than-average” do they have to be to be on this list?

Data without sources is pretty redundant, imo, and best taken with the lightest pinch of salt until proven otherwise.

At the time of my writing this, it’s had 2.3k likes. I’ve never known anything like it.

But, aside from those accusing me of owning a car on that list, which is why they think I’m annoyed at it (I don’t), I keep getting one thing constantly thrown at me, and I never could have expected it.

And it wasn’t even the person who tried to correct me by saying the expression was “a grain of salt” (both version are valid and “pinch of salt” is usually used in British English).

I don’t think redundant is the right word there.

There’s about half a dozen examples of different people stating the same thing. Each time I reply saying it is, as I’m using it in the valid context of meaning something that is “no longer useful”.

One person, though, doubles down on their insistence that I’m wrong…

The closest definition to that is “no longer needed for a job and hence laid off” but that doesn’t apply to data, only workers.

Do they think that the word “redundant” can only be used when referring to employees? Not referring to data? Have they not heard of the expression of “data redundancy“?

My reply was…

No, redundant doesn’t only apply to workers. Please read https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/redundant

I’m referring to the use of it to mean “superfluous; exceeding what is necessary, no longer needed.”

I can’t believe I’ve spent most of my time in this thread explaining to people what “redundant” means in the context that I’ve (validly) used it. Do none of them have access to free online dictionaries like the rest of us?

Well, it appears not. They replied.

Interesting, neither of the dictionaries I consulted have that definition. I think the reason you’ve had to spend the time explaining it is because it’s a very rare usage of the word. In fact so rare I don’t think I’ve ever encountered it before.

What a strange world.