I was reading a pretty interesting article this morning about how a Pittsburgh TV celebrity rigged the state lottery back in 1980. (I’d throw in a link, but I think you have to subscribe. It’s free, though, so check it out.)
Anyway, everything was hunky-dory until I came across this sentence:
Over a week, 25 witnesses — including co-conspirators, shop owners, and angry senior citizens — took the stand.
I know that co-conspirators has become so entrenched in our language that we hardly notice it anymore, but still. What’s with the extra co-?
According to my copy of the OED, a conspirator is “a person who conspires or is engaged in a conspiracy”; a conspiracy is “a combination of people for an unlawful or a reprehensible purpose.” So. Conspirators conspire. They work together toward the same purpose. In fact, they have to work together, otherwise it isn’t much of a conspiracy.
Doesn’t that make the addition of co- redundant, then? Shouldn’t “conspirators, shop owners, and angry senior citizens” have sufficed?
Yes. And yes.
