It was, after all, public officials who gave us “safe haven” during the Persian Gulf War. Someone apparently grafted the “safe” from “safe harbor” (not all harbors are safe) onto “haven” (by definition, a safe place). The creation of this obnoxious pleonasm … illustrates the bureaucrat’s familiar combination of self-importance, pretension, and ignorance. (John E. McIntyre, Words That Survive the Test of Time, The Christian Science Monitor, 12/30/1999, p. 11.)
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