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Is this sentence right?

If I'm not mistaken, it's a kind of a rococo style.

The expression «a kind of» is only used when you're not sure about something, right? If so, is it correct to say «If I'm not mistaken» in the same sentence with «a kind of»? Aren't you repeating yourself?

Rococo style is an art movement, the sentence is referring to a painting.

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    "A kind of" may be used if you are sure of it. "A chickadee is a kind of bird."
    – GEdgar
    Commented Dec 28, 2020 at 17:50
  • "A kind of" is not the same as kind of, as in "That's kinda spicy, Honey!". Even so, a bit of repetition does not hurt: If I'm right, that style is somewhat Rococo.
    – Yosef Baskin
    Commented Dec 28, 2020 at 17:56
  • I just checked Google NGrams to see what's the most common word after a kind of a. Apparently it's general, so I did another check, comparing the more "natural" form, without that second article (a kind of general). Here's the result,
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Dec 28, 2020 at 18:01
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    ...in short, very few native speakers would repeat the indefinite article in such contexts.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Dec 28, 2020 at 18:02
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    'A kind of rococo style' has one genuine token on a Google search (and half a dozen from amateur pundits); it's not the phraseology an expert would use. 'It's a kind of Picasso' shows an even worse example of this. Where is the sentence from?
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Dec 28, 2020 at 20:07

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Looking at your sentence, I understand that this is not a formal situation. In which case You really should not worry about being redundant, people do that all the time to get their point across. So yes, your sentence is perfectly correct and clear.

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  • The 'point' (!?) the speaker is trying to get across being that if they're correct, congratulations are in order, while if they're incorrect, they tried their best. It's a doubly-hedged-for-diffidence / attempt-at-a-lack-of-culpability pragmatic device, 'a kind of' meaning 'something like' here.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Dec 28, 2020 at 19:48
  • Well, I thought one point he is making is that he is not sure of the information he is giving, but is only offering an opinion for which he cannot provide other arguments than his own hunch.
    – fev
    Commented Dec 28, 2020 at 19:51
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    Few people who know art well would use 'a kind of Rococo style', and practically none of them would use the modal hedge 'If I'm not mistaken'. This is almost certainly two variants on 'I can't be sure', when twinned heading towards 'I'm not at all sure'. // I'm reasonably sure that rococo style doesn't have any but the most esoteric of subsets.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Dec 28, 2020 at 19:59
  • Your native speaker input is much appreciated. Thank you.
    – fev
    Commented Dec 28, 2020 at 20:01

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