What Is The Grammatical Term To

[croesus]

Describe phrases like pretty lovely and scarily horrific?

[patgreg]

tautology

[emeritus]

Tautology ?

[boxtops]

I'd agree with tautology - it's over-egging the cake :-)

[bookbinder]

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tautology

[jeffa]

The first one definitely isn't tautology, as "pretty" here is being used as an adverb, as in "pretty big", "pretty old". It just happens to be capable of being used as an adjective meaning "attractive", especially of women.

The second one is dubious at best. Just because something is horrific doesn't necessarily make it scary.

[jno]

agree with jeffa. Pretty doesn't mean the same as lovely in this instance; and scary isn't necessarily the same as horrific. So they're just phrases.

[EcclesCake]

Could just be bad examples?

[boxtops]

I'd say those are not very good examples, rather than croesus is looking for a different answer. I guess.

[stewey]

Perhaps, for the first one, he meant "pretty ugly". In that case, it would be an oxymoron: the two terms sort of negate each other...Just a thought.

[jeffa]

I'm guessing you've not read the whole thread, stewey. "Pretty" here is not an approximate synonym for "lovely"; it could be replaced with a similar word like "rather".