Tuesday February 26, 2008
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Tuesday February 26, 2008 | The Department of Redundancy Department | Humor |
Redundant phrases like "ATM Machine" any "PIN Number" have annoyed literalists like myself for decades now. Most people are so oblivious to them that I can sarcastically use phrases like "automatic ATM machine" or "personal PIN number" and they won't even flinch.
When several new redundant phrases started cropping up here at Sun I wanted to name them. Irony demanded that the term also be a redundant phrase using a three letter acronym (TLA). After a minute of thinking I realized that this meme was so old that there must already be a term for it.
Wikipedia to the rescue!
There is a term: RAS Syndrome: Redundant Acronym Syndrome Syndrome
Also popular is PNS Syndrome, PIN Number Syndrome Syndrome (which is actually Personal Identification Number Number Syndrome Syndrome).
The Wikipedia article lists some good examples, as do fun-with-words.com. and nanday.com.
Anyway...
Here are the PNSs floating around Sun these days:
- ORI Index (Operational Risk Index)
- BAR Report (Baseline Analysis Report)
- SOA Account (Sun Online Account)
Tags: english language peeves ras_syndrome redundancy tla
February 26, 2008 01:15 PM PST Permalink | Comments [6] |
Comments:
Ok, PNS Syndrome is my favorite, since it is doubly redundant (redundantly redundant?)
Posted by David Simmons on February 26, 2008 at 02:09 PM PST #
For a related, bilingual case, I always was bugged by the popular tourist attraction in
Los Angeles, "The La Brea Tar Pits". If you translate this all into English, it becomes
"The The Tar Tar Pits"
Posted by Brian Utterback on February 27, 2008 at 09:45 AM PST #
Nice one, Brian. I guess any thing like "The Los Angeles Dodgers" is also going to fall into that category.
How about "Windows 2000 - Built on NT technology."?
Posted by Roger Mialkowski on March 06, 2008 at 09:42 AM PST #
Some years ago I came across an 8 or 10 page booklet telling U.S service personnel about care and registration procedures for their POV. I almost got to the end before discovering that POV stood for Personally Owned Vehicle - some people in England call it a CAR ...
But, leaving tautology and redundancy aside, my personal favourites are what you might call "TLA overloads", where one or more letters is an abbreviation for another TLA (or FLA)
PUP and AAL spring to mind, but I am sure there must be many others
Posted by Frederick Smith on March 11, 2008 at 06:58 AM PDT #
PHP is the opposite. It's a recursive acronym. PHP stands for PHP: Hypertext processor.
Posted by Trevor on April 04, 2008 at 09:50 AM PDT #
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