Wordbunnies

Did you know that if you google "dust bunnies" you will get -- in about 0.23 seconds -- close to two and a half million hits? If you google "dustbunnies" you still get 486,000 hits in 0.10 seconds. But it seems there are only 646 Websites that include the word "wordbunnies." Of course, I didn't go to all of them, but the ones I looked at were very vague about what a wordbunny is.

Well let's end the confusion. A wordbunny is one of those clumps of words that you see scattered about the surface of text that do little more than simply hold together as a clump of words. They don't really do anything else. It's like some form of static electricity pulls them together, and they lie there making it clear that the text owner doesn't like to text clean very much.

Here is a list of some of the wordbunnies I see most often:

• at the very least (as opposed to the penultimate least?)
• at the very most (ditto)
• not to mention (oops, it's going to be mentioned)
• that being said (we've already talked about this one)
• suffice it to say (then what is the rest of the text doing here?)
• in the final analysis (?)
• when all is said and done (will we still even be here?)
• as everyone knows (then please don't tell me again)
• that's not to say (yes it is, you just said it)
• every now and then (that means always, right?)
• with no disrespect (hmm, I'll be the judge of that)

Of course the list goes on. And to be fair (see what I mean?), these pesky little creatures have a way of showing up in even the most meticulous text owner's text, and often times right before company. There's nothing technically wrong with them. They just don't add anything to the text.

What wordbunnies would you like to see added to the list?