Concerns about redundancy are back this week, this time over the expression “exact same.” If two things are the same, do you really need to say they're the exact same?
Bryan Garner’s Modern English Usage traces “exact same” back to the 1950s. Garner describes it as a “lazy truncation” of “exactly the same” and says it’s acceptable in informal speech but not polished prose.
Merriam-Webster’s Concise Dictionary of English Usage takes a different view. Its editors asked whether “exact same” is used by educated speakers and writers. The answer is yes. They cite examples from The New York Times Book Review, John Updike in The New Yorker, and Fortune magazine.
When it comes to objections over usage of "exact same," there are two issues at play: redundancy and grammar.
The redundancy argument is straightforward. If something is the same as something else, why do you need “exact”? However, as editors on Merriam-Webster's blog have pointed out, English has plenty of expressions in which an apparently unnecessary word adds emphasis, such as "mixed together” and “final destination.” Sometimes that extra word adds a little oomph.
In terms of grammar, there are several ways to think about "exact same," and some people have stronger opinions than others. Some people would argue that "exact" isn't an adverb, so it can't modify "same." Others would say it's two adjectives because you can say "exact same" and "same exact."
Then there are those who would say "exact same" is just an idiom, so get over it.
To hear more about the grammatical arguments over “exact same” and what makes “almost the exact same” such an interesting expression, listen to the audio above.
