Is It Redundant To Use But Before Alas? The punctuation is suspect in the second sentence The first variant is totally acceptable I'm finding the apparent twinning of 'save' with 'months in the hospital' somewhat more jarring than twinning 'but' with 'alas' I assume 'they' equates to 'the medical staff' << He planted two hundred tulip bulbs, but alas, only two dozen tulips grew ' >> looks and sounds fine Assuming you're not