Department Of Redundancy Department
Everyday conversation is replete with redundancy. Two of the most common offenses are the use of the phrases “ATM machine” and “PIN number.” When the acronyms are spelled out, the phrases become “automated teller machine machine” and “personal identification number number.” If one constantly uses these phrases, then he suffers from RAS syndrome, or redundant acronym syndrome syndrome.
The best definition of redundancy is perhaps one found online from the Uncyclopedia: “Redundancy is the unnecessary use of either needless, tautological, pleonastic, superfluous, or unnecessary text, by which one repeats, in duplication, the same, identical, aforesaid things over and over and over and over and over again, beyond what would be needed or required to explain, or make comprehensible, the intended or signified meaning of that which one wishes to convey. These things can be and most likely will be referred to as being redundant. Usually, it is often common in redundancy to repeat, sometimes with different phrasing or words, the same idea or reasoning, thus restating one’s thoughts, sometimes paraphrasing oneself and effectively saying the same thing twice, or double, or thrice, or three times, or triply so, or a small handful of times, or any number of excessive, unnecessary restatements greater than zero.”