... is that they encourage tautology.
In particular, I am always peeved to be asked for my "PIN number," rather than just my "PIN"

Any other acronymic tautologies?

Is it the ATM machine that is asking for you PIN number?

dead right, of troy! We rarely use "ATM" over here, (cash machine or "hole-in-the-wall" are the usual) so that one didn't strike me at once.

Great minds, etc. You know I was just thinking about this the other day, but I was thinking the term might be acronymic redundancy or some such. Still, tautology makes sense to me as well. Anyway, here's a small list I found.

http://www.emich.edu/~linguist/issues/4/4-501.html

I'm not sure irritation describes my feeling on the subject. Or maybe it does. These things just sound weird - like some gibbering kid is talking to me. Oddly, when my kids were young I didn't use baby language with them, but now that they're older I'm all the time petting them and calling them baby and such. It would make me wanna puke if I thought about it too much. My youngest is 10, but a really teeny ten. Wife buys milk by the gallon and she can't fill her own bowl, so she asks me to do it for her. "You want your daddy to pour you some milky milk, Baby Girl?" <glare> "Yes, please." Or, the chinese word for egg is dan, but we call it dan dan. "You want Daddy to make you a dan dan?"

Anyway, when I hear some of these, it requires a measure of discipline to avoid sliding into that role. Trouble at the supermarket. "Sir you need to type in your PIN number again." "Does Daddy need to type in his PIN number again, Baby Girl?" "Security to checkout!"

k

well whether they are ATM's, cash machine or "hole-in-the-wall", a small peice of plastic is use as the ID card
ID= Identity Document-- do we really need to say what kind of document...

In reply to:

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"Sir you need to type in your PIN number again."

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. . . only something the hoi polloi would do . . .

Curiously enough, I have noticed a change in this situation since the last time we discussed it here at AWADtalk. In my admittedly small corner of a small town on a small island in a small country, I now often hear both PIN and ATM without the tautological suffix. It did not use to be so, perhaps its just the Zildian sloth gene working its magic. Whatever the reason, I would guesstimate that I hear both acronyms used correctly more than 50% of the time.

How about "SALT talks" (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks), which we used to see in headlines.

ID= Identity Document

Good to see you posting again, Helen - we've missed you! On topic: I've always assumed ID was short for "identification" - hence, ID card=identification card, n'est pas? Would not have thought of Identification Document...

On topic: I've always assumed ID was short for "identification" - hence, ID card=identification card, n'est pas? Would not have thought of Identification Document...


Which difference strongly suggests that "ID card" is not a redundancy the way that "PIN number" and "ATM machine" are.

suggests that "ID card" is not a redundancy

Exactly the point I was making - without really making it. Thanks, sjm, for reading between the lines I didn't write!

Thanks, sjm, for reading between the lines I didn't write!
Ah--our sjm is clearly lacking the Zildian sloth gene!

I've switched to saying the "word" ID as a word, (id, rhymes with squid) rather than saying the letters. There's some nice multi-layered meaning that way.

E.g.: As husband is going out the door - "Don't forget your id."

>E.g.: As husband is going out the door - "Don't forget your id."<

LOL at that one, Bean!!!!

I wonder about these tautologies myself. But, then, that always leads me to another theory/query: Perhaps the reason some people tend to add a redundant word after a common acronym, is because the acronym that was originally a noun, has now become an adjective. Not sure if that makes sense...let me try again.

The phrase Personal Identification Number is, two adjectives and a noun, as we all know, so adding that redundant noun is bothersome.

But, PIN the *word* has become commonplace as an adjective: You need a "number" to access your bank account, your email, etc? So what "kind" of number do you need? Why, a PIN Number, of course!

I think that is called colloquial speaking?