Fallon had a “I used to think…” Twitter post, and while I rarely tweet, I was thinking about the phrase.

I remember riding in the back of the car on the way to Fresno, at age 5 or 6, when I heard a radio newsman report a story about someone who was, “shot and killed.”

I asked Mom if that wasn’t a redundant statement, as I thought that if a person was shot with a gun, they died.

I didn’t know a person could be wounded by a gunshot, but I knew what a “redundant statement” was.

The life of a hyper-literate child.