Learn English – The use of nearly similar words – Until and unless & each and every

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This is the first question I had asked here. But things went in other direction and ultimately, I moved to this board as advised.

The question:

I have heard this from many. They use 'each and every' and 'until and unless' in one sentence. Is this usage correct? How?

See this –

I want each and every one of you to follow the instruction.

I want every one of you to follow the instruction.

Also,

First of all, you have to understand what she means.

First, you have to understand what she means. – “First” is always the first among all, right?

This is surprising (but confirmed)

The word 'revert' does mean back in most of the cases still, using revert back is correct!

If we could convey the message by putting just one word, why go for redundancy?

Best Answer

Each and every uses the repetition for emphasis. As Wiktionary says:

Each without exception; used for emphasis.
　　"Do not leave without checking each and every door to make sure it is locked."

Until and unless uses the repetition for emphasis as well. This phrase, however, is somewhat less common, and I think it's used mainly in formal contexts. (I was unable to find a dictionary that listed until and unless.)

To give you an idea of relative frequency, here are the terms I searched for in COCA, along with how many results I found for each search term:

  each and every       1500
  every and each       2

  until and unless     58
  unless and until     137

You'll notice that each and every is a fixed phrase which doesn't occur in reverse order, but until and unless is actually more common the other way around. (Thanks to J.R. for pointing this out in a comment!)

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