Safe Haven

Is Safe Haven Redundant?

A lot has been written regarding “safe haven.” Some of it even by me in my grammar books. What draws the ire is the phrase’s built-in redundancy.

But is safe haven redundant, and does it matter? Let’s look further.

Is Safe Haven Redundant?

The problem with words is that they’re subject to frequent misuse. It’s easy to identify the offenders at the top of the list: words like ain’t, irregardless, and such. But the more troublesome words are not so easily identified, and they’re the ones you should worry about. Perhaps not everyone will catch the mistakes, but those who do will know you made a mistake. They may not say anything, but they’ll know.

Potential Scenario

I had this in mind from some research I was doing when a friend of mine invited me to meet him for lunch.

Tony and I sat down to lunch, and while we were waiting for the waiter to take our order, I told him about my sister’s husband beating her.

He said, “Why don’t you take her to a safe haven?”

I said, “What?”

He said, “A safe haven. You know like one of those places where battered women go.”

I said, “Wouldn’t that just be a haven, not a safe haven?”

He said, “A safe haven is a safe place.”

I said, “A haven is safe place. A safe haven is a safe, safe place.”

He shook his head and sneered. “I don’t think so.”

“Get your phone and look it up.”

After a moment he found the dictionary and typed in “haven.” This is what he got:

: a place of safety : refuge

a place offering favorable opportunities or conditions. a haven for artists

Shortly after that he lowered his head and said, “You were right.”

When the waiter came back I looked over to Tony, and I said, “What are you going to order—the _tuna fish _sandwich or the _chicken fowl _salad?”

Let’s Get Serious

Now that we’ve had some fun, let’s get serious. Most all dictionaries listed haven similarly. Below are a few examples.

The Free Dictionary
ha·ven (hā′vən)

1. A harbor or anchorage; a port.
2. A place of refuge or rest; a sanctuary.

Dictionary.com

a harbor or port.
any place of shelter and safety; refuge; asylum.
verb (used with object)
to shelter, as in a haven.

Merriam-Webster’s
Definition of haven

1 : HARBOR, PORT
2 : a place of safety : REFUGE
3 : a place offering favorable opportunities or conditions
a haven for artists

MacMillan

a place where people or animals can feel safe and happy
haven for: The park has become a haven for local wildlife.

So Is Safe Haven Redundant?

Technically—yes. But as we all know, language evolves on a continual basis. Words that meant one thing a few decades (or more) ago, mean something else now.

To show you what I mean, let’s look at a few words whose meanings have undergone dramatic changes.

Awe and Awesome

Awe and awesome have both been around a long time; in fact, according to etymology online awe has been in use since about 1300. Below are two listings from etymology online—one for awe and one for_awesome.

awe (v.)

“inspire with fear or dread,” c. 1300, from awe (n.); Old English had egan (v.).

awesome (adj.)

1590s, “profoundly reverential,” from awe (n.) + -some (1). Meaning “inspiring awe or dread” is from 1670s; weakened colloquial sense of “impressive, very good” is recorded by 1961 and was in vogue from after c. 1980. Related: Awesomely; awesomeness.

Originally the words had similar meanings, but by the early 19th century, things began to change and by the later 1900s, awesome was firmly entrenched in common usage to mean “great, tremendous, stunning,” etc.

Myriad
Nowadays myriad is used in a fashion similar to another word I’ve written about—plethora. And both of them are used wrong—if you a stickler for the language.

If you look at the etymology of the word, it originally meant ten thousand—specifically.

>1550s, “the number of 10,000,” also “an indefinitely great number,” from Middle French myriade and directly from Late Latin myrias (genitive myriadis) “ten thousand,” from Greek myrias (genitive myriados) “a number of ten thousand; countless numbers,” from myrios (plural myrioi) “innumerable, countless, infinite; boundless,” as a definite number, “ten thousand” (“the greatest number in Greek expressed by one word,”

There seems to be some leeway in the definition to mean countless, and by the year 1800, that’s the definition it evolved into. Today it’s almost never used to mean a specific number, just many.

Pretty

Everybody knows what pretty means. You’ve probably used it numerous times when complimenting someone. Here’s the definition from Merriam-Webster’s.

having conventionally accepted elements of beauty : attractive in usually a simple or delicate way

But pretty didn’t begin life in such a wonderful way. Early on, pretty meant crafty and cunning. Here is the listing from Etymology online.

pretty (adj.)
Old English prættig (West Saxon), pretti (Kentish), *prettig (Mercian) “cunning, skillful, artful, wily, astute,” from prætt, *prett “a trick, wile, craft,” from Proto-Germanic *pratt- (source also of Old Norse prettr “a trick,” prettugr “tricky;” Frisian pret, Middle Dutch perte, Dutch pret “trick, joke,” Dutch prettig “sportive, funny,” Flemish pertig “brisk, clever”), of unknown origin.

Etymology online goes on to show gradual changes in usage until this listing in the 1700s:

pretty (n.)
“a pretty person or thing,” 1736, from pretty (adj.).

Terrific

Everyone knows what terrific means, and I’d be willing to bet everyone has used the word at one time or another. But did you know how terrific started out? Let’s look:

terrific (adj.)
1660s, “frightening,” from Latin terrificus “causing terror or fear, frightful,” from terrere “fill with fear” (see terrible) + combining form of facere “to make” (from PIE root *dhe- “to set, put”). Weakened sensed of “very great, severe” (as in terrific headache) appeared 1809; inverted colloquial sense of “excellent” began 1888. Related: Terrifically.

As you can see terrific has changed from a word meaning “causing terror or fear” to one that now connotes a sense of excellent. In the past, you may have heard the phrase “terrific thunderstorm” used frequently, but today you’re more likely to hear “terrific meal” or “terrific party,” when in fact it was just good meal and good party.

Let’s get back to the original topic.

Safe Haven

There has been a lot of fuss made over the redundancy of “safe haven,” and while I agree that the phrase is redundant, I don’t find it particularly offensive. Since haven’s use is typically reserved for serious situations, ones demanding or explaining the safety of something, to me, when people say “safe haven,” it’s almost as if they are reassuring the person. It would be similar to a parent telling a child “It’s okay, you’ll be safe here, it’s fine.”

So if you hear someone say “safe haven,” cut them some slack.

If you want to learn more about redundancies, try this article.

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Giacomo Giammatteo is the author of gritty crime dramas about murder, mystery, and family. And he also writes nonfiction books, including Simply Put: The Plain English Grammar Guide and the No Mistakes Careers series as well as other books on grammar, fantasy, publishing, writing, and children’s fiction and nonfiction.

When Giacomo isn’t writing, he’s helping his wife take care of the animals on their sanctuary. At last count, they had forty animals—seven dogs, one horse, six cats, and twenty-five pigs.

Oh, and one crazy—and very large—wild boar, who used to take walks with Giacomo every day.
He lives in Texas, where he and his wife have an animal sanctuary with forty loving “friends.”

Tags: edit, grammar, redundant