Contact / address book duplicates

WHile led I see lots of suggestions how to fix Contact / address book duplicates - I don't know what causes them.
I only have 1 mail account - exchange. What am I doing wrong to see duplicates constantly being created?
thanks. Be gentle!

Hi, have a similar but bigger problem. card --> Look for duplicates does not solve it.
from original 2000 adresses I now have 550,000 many of them massive duplicates. Causes MASSIVE time waste and delays.
Event correlates with me installing Outlook for Mac2011 sync programme.
now want to just delete address book and sync again and stay with Mac Address/Cal and disconnect from Microsoft.
question: can I simply delete address book in Finder? what happens when I go back into it? does it get newly created?
any other suggestion how to tackle?
thanks for desperate help

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    <Edited By Host>

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