How’s this for a non-informative (and real!) newspaper headline?
“Billionaire investor was keen on investing, fraud trial told”
No kidding. And avid dancers like to dance.
Avoid such repetition in your writing. Admittedly, I have never received such a banal title from a student.
This, however, is common:
“Last week I came across a thrilling new Swedish mystery novel. The novel’s story is well-written and packed with suspense. The novel’s story is not a typical mystery because there is no obvious culprit.”
Never start two sentences in a row with the same word or phrase. (Parallel structures are another matter, of course.)
Figura etymologica – i.e. when you use derivations of the same root – is also common:
“The questioning of the suspect included questions like, ‘Where were you last night?'”
This is plain ugly. This, however, is lovely and intentional: “Sing a Song of Sixpence”
My battery is dying… Time to post!
All Language Notes of the Week are available at:
http://www2.arnes.si/~bjason/LNW.pdf