By Mary Morel
Redundant words
A reader questioned whether I should have written the reason is… that rather than the reason is… because. He is right.
The offending sentence was:
The reason for a semicolon in the second example is because you’re introducing a new clause.
I should have written:
The reason for a semicolon in the second example is that you’re introducing a new clause.
The reason is that because is redundant. Sometimes you can also delete that.
Some grammar experts also think the reason is because is grammatically incorrect. Read why.
PS I could have avoided the problem by writing a cleaner sentence.
You use a semicolon in the second example to introduce a new clause.
Hindsight is wonderful.
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