student asking question

Is it common to use "around" and "about" at the same time? I think those two have similar meaning.

teacher

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

No, it is not common to use "around" and "about" together when they have the same meaning of "approximately", unless you are using "around" with a different meaning. In this case, it seems as though he is using "around" and "about" to both have the same meaning of "approximately", so it is probably just an error as this is not common and very repetitive. However, it he had moved the preposition "at" and said "it flies around at about 150 miles and hour", this would change the meaning of "around" to mean in all different directions and this would make sense.

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