My Grammar and I (Or Should That Be 'Me'?): Old-School Ways to Sharpen Your English

Er, um, room for improvement
Recent research concludes that English speakers use a meaningless word about
every  nine  seconds  and  that  ten  per  cent  of  English  speech  consists  of  filler
words . And, um, you know, if you don’t mind our saying so, it’s sort of boring
to listen to .
It’s déjà-vu all over again…
Tautological phrases or synonyms (words that mean the same) simply repeat a
meaning with different words. Making free with these weakens your writing and
suggests that you don’t know what the words mean. Our pet hates are safe haven
(what other kind of haven is there, for goodness’ sake?) and PIN number  (what
do people think the N stands for?) but we seem to be fighting a losing battle on
these two. However, there are lots of other nonsenses against which we can still
hold out:
absolute certainty
factual
information
honest truth
accidental mistake
fall down
new innovation
added bonus
fictional story
stupid idiot
awful tragedy
final
conclusion
sum total
climb up
free gift
terrible disaster
close scrutiny
grab hold
true fact
complete opposite
end result
unconfirmed
rumour
eight p.m. in the
evening
HIV virus
variety of
different
and many, many more.
Note: one particularly common misuse is of the word unique. Unique , from the

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Latin for one , means ‘being the only one of a kind’, ‘without parallel’. So  it  is
(just about) possible for something to be almost unique , i.e. there might be two
of them, whatever they are; but not for it to be quite unique or very unique.