As a former bookseller, the oft-heard phrase ISBN number sent an irksome chill up my spine.* As a former bookseller, I was often grumped upon overhearing the phrase ISBN number. Now I have a word for that bugbear:
Redundonym: the use of an acronym followed by a word that is actually a part of the acronym. Examples include ATM machine, GRE exam, HIV virus, PIN number, and UPS service.
Got any to add to the list?
Apparently SAT test is exempt:
A former redundonym, SAT test, however, is no longer a redundonym. In 1997 the College Board, the company that administers the exam, announced that “SAT is not an initialism… The SAT has become the trademark; it doesn’t stand for anything.”
from The Copyeditor’s Handbook by Amy Einsohn
*Commenter JME wins the Find the Hidden Grammatical Error Prize!
I had a boyfriend who wanted to strangle anybody who said “ATM machine”.
I learned quick.
I’m guilty of “ISBN number”, I think.
I don’t care about such things. I understand that this makes me bad and stupid. I’m ok with that.
FYI to you….
You need your VIN number to get plates for your car.
Because I work with corporate data, a private horror: FEIN number.
People who have no clear concept of nationality claiming to be “scandanavian”?
Microsoft MS-DOS Operating System
as in:
C:
C:ver
Microsoft MS-DOS Operating System Version 5.0
How about the person, so often described in the press, who “owns his own business,” as opposed, it seems, to the one who owns someone else’s business?