RAS syndrome

Last updated

"ATM machine" is a common example of RAS syndrome ATM Machine RAS Syndrome sign.jpg
"ATM machine" is a common example of RAS syndrome

RAS syndrome, where RAS stands for redundant acronym syndrome (making the phrase "RAS syndrome" autological) is the redundant use of one or more of the words that make up an acronym in conjunction with the abbreviated form. This means, in effect, repeating one or more words from the acronym. For example: PIN number (expanding to personal identification number number) and ATM machine (expanding to automated teller machine machine).

Contents

The term RAS syndrome was coined in 2001 in a light-hearted column in New Scientist. [1] [2] [3]

A person is said to "suffer" from RAS syndrome when they redundantly use one or more of the words that make up an acronym or initialism with the abbreviation itself. Usage commentators consider such redundant acronyms poor style that is best avoided in writing, especially in a formal context, though they are common in speech. [4] The degree to which there is a need to avoid pleonasms such as redundant acronyms depends on one's balance point of prescriptivism (ideas about how language should be used) versus descriptivism (the realities of how natural language is used). [5] For writing intended to persuade, impress, or avoid criticism, many usage guides advise writers to avoid pleonasm as much as possible, not because such usage is always wrong, but rather because most of one's audience may believe that it is always wrong. [6]

Linguistics

Although there are many instances in editing where removal of redundancy improves clarity, [7] the pure-logic ideal of zero redundancy is seldom maintained in human languages. Bill Bryson says: "Not all repetition is bad. It can be used for effect ..., or for clarity, or in deference to idiom. 'SALT talks' and 'HIV virus' are both technically redundant because the second word is already contained in the preceding abbreviation, but only the ultra-finicky would deplore them.

A limited amount of redundancy can improve the effectiveness of communication, either for the whole readership or at least to offer help to those readers who need it. A phonetic example of that principle is the need for spelling alphabets in radiotelephony. Some instances of RAS syndrome can be viewed as syntactic examples of the principle. The redundancy may help the listener by providing context and decreasing the "alphabet soup quotient" (the cryptic overabundance of abbreviations and acronyms) of the communication.

Acronyms from foreign languages are often treated as unanalyzed morphemes when they are not translated. For example, in French, "le protocole IP" (the Internet Protocol protocol) is often used, and in English "please RSVP" (roughly "please respond please") is very common. [4] [8] This occurs for the same linguistic reasons that cause many toponyms to be tautological. The tautology is not parsed by the mind in most instances of real-world use (in many cases because the foreign word's meaning is not known anyway; in others simply because the usage is idiomatic).

Examples

Examples of RAS phrases include:

Non-examples

Sometimes the presence of repeated words does not result in a redundant phrase. For example, "OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) countries" are two or more member states of OPEC, whereas "OPEC" by itself denotes the overall organization.[ citation needed ]

See also

Related Research Articles

An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method including shortening, contraction, initialism or crasis.

A recursive acronym is an acronym that refers to itself, and appears most frequently in computer programming. The term was first used in print in 1979 in Douglas Hofstadter's book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, in which Hofstadter invents the acronym GOD, meaning "GOD Over Djinn", to help explain infinite series, and describes it as a recursive acronym. Other references followed, however the concept was used as early as 1968 in John Brunner's science fiction novel Stand on Zanzibar. In the story, the acronym EPT later morphed into "Eptification for Particular Task".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Figure of speech</span> Change of the expected pattern of words

A figure of speech or rhetorical figure is a word or phrase that intentionally deviates from straightforward language use or literal meaning to produce a rhetorical or intensified effect. In the distinction between literal and figurative language, figures of speech constitute the latter. Figures of speech are traditionally classified into schemes, which vary the ordinary sequence of words, and tropes, where words carry a meaning other than what they ordinarily signify.

Elegant variation is the use of synonyms to avoid repetition or add variety. The term was introduced in 1906 by H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler in The King's English. In their meaning of the term, they focus particularly on instances when the word being avoided is a noun or its pronoun. Pronouns are themselves variations intended to avoid awkward repetition, and variations are so often not necessary, that they should be used only when needed. The Fowlers recommend that "variations should take place only when there is some awkwardness, such as ambiguity or noticeable monotony, in the word avoided".

Pleonasm is redundancy in linguistic expression, such as "black darkness," "burning fire," "the man he said," or "vibrating with motion." It is a manifestation of tautology by traditional rhetorical criteria and might be considered a fault of style. Pleonasm may also be used for emphasis, or because the phrase has become established in a certain form. Tautology and pleonasm are not consistently differentiated in literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Survival of the fittest</span> Phrase to describe the mechanism of natural selection

"Survival of the fittest" is a phrase that originated from Darwinian evolutionary theory as a way of describing the mechanism of natural selection. The biological concept of fitness is defined as reproductive success. In Darwinian terms, the phrase is best understood as "survival of the form that in successive generations will leave most copies of itself."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Self-referential humor</span> Humor that alludes to itself

Self-referential humor, also known as self-reflexive humor, self-aware humor, or meta humor, is a type of comedic expression that—either directed toward some other subject, or openly directed toward itself—is self-referential in some way, intentionally alluding to the very person who is expressing the humor in a comedic fashion, or to some specific aspect of that same comedic expression. Here, meta is used to describe that the joke explicitly talks about other jokes, a usage similar to the words metadata, metatheatrics and metafiction. Self-referential humor expressed discreetly and surrealistically is a form of bathos. In general, self-referential humor often uses hypocrisy, oxymoron, or paradox to create a contradictory or otherwise absurd situation that is humorous to the audience.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Acronym</span> Abbreviation consisting of initial letters of a phrase

An acronym is an abbreviation of a phrase that usually consists of the initial letter of each word in all caps with no punctuation.

In linguistics, a redundancy is information that is expressed more than once.

Reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS), also known as reliability, availability, and maintainability (RAM), is a computer hardware engineering term involving reliability engineering, high availability, and serviceability design. The phrase was originally used by IBM as a term to describe the robustness of their mainframe computers.

In mathematical logic, a tautology is a formula or assertion that is true in every possible interpretation. An example is "x=y or x≠y". Similarly, "either the ball is green, or the ball is not green" is always true, regardless of the colour of the ball.

Abbreviations are a common part of the Hebrew language, with many organizations, places, people and concepts known by their abbreviations.

The full stop, period, or full point. is a punctuation mark used for several purposes, most often to mark the end of a declarative sentence.

Corporate jargon is the jargon often used in large corporations, bureaucracies, and similar workplaces. The language register of the term is generally being presented in a negative light or disapprovingly. It is often considered to be needlessly obscure or, alternatively, used to disguise an absence of information. Its use in corporations and other large organisations has been widely noted in media.

In common usage and linguistics, concision is a communication principle of eliminating redundancy, generally achieved by using as few words as possible in a sentence while preserving its meaning. More generally, it is achieved through the omission of parts that impart information that was already given, that is obvious or that is irrelevant. Outside of linguistics, a message may be similarly "dense" in other forms of communication.

RSVP is an initialism derived from the French phrase "Répondez s'il vous plaît", meaning "Please respond", to require confirmation of an invitation. The initialism "RSVP" is no longer used much in France, where it is considered formal and old-fashioned. In France, it is now more common to use "Réponse attendue avant le ...", meaning "[Your] answer is expected before ...". In addition, the French initialism "SVP" is frequently used to represent "S'il vous plaît" ("Please").

In literary criticism and rhetoric, a tautology is a statement that repeats an idea, using near-synonymous morphemes, words or phrases, effectively "saying the same thing twice". Tautology and pleonasm are not consistently differentiated in literature. Like pleonasm, tautology is often considered a fault of style when unintentional. Intentional repetition may emphasize a thought or help the listener or reader understand a point. Sometimes logical tautologies like "Boys will be boys" are conflated with language tautologies, but a language tautology is not inherently true, while a logical tautology always is.

References

  1. ↑ Clothier, Gary (November 8, 2006). "Ask Mr. Know-It-All". The York Dispatch.
  2. ↑ Newman, Stanley (December 20, 2008). "Sushi by any other name". Windsor Star. p. G4. Archived from the original on May 3, 2012.
  3. ↑ "Feedback" (fee required). New Scientist . No. 2285. April 7, 2001. p. 108. Archived from the original on June 21, 2015. Retrieved December 8, 2006.
  4. 1 2 Garner, Bryan A. (2000) The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
  5. ↑ Milroy, James; Milroy, Lesley (1999). Authority in Language: Investigating Standard English. Psychology Press. ISBN   978-0-415-17412-1.
  6. ↑ Kasperavičienė, Ramunė (December 12, 2011). "On Semantic Pleonasms in English and their Translation in Lithuanian". Studies About Languages. 0 (19): 21–26. doi:10.5755/j01.sal.0.19.942. ISSN   2029-7203.
  7. ↑ Bryson, Bill (2002), Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words, ISBN   0-7679-1043-5.
  8. ↑ "LINGUIST List 4.532: Last Posting: Acronyms". Linguistlist.org. July 7, 1993. Archived from the original on September 24, 2018. Retrieved May 22, 2009.
  9. ↑ "Why The DC Comics Name Actually Makes No Sense". Screen Rant. October 5, 2019. Archived from the original on April 28, 2021. Retrieved April 28, 2021.
  10. ↑ "What Does DC Comics Stand For?". Screen Rant. May 7, 2020. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  11. ↑ Nordquist, Richard. "RAS Syndrome: Redundant Acronym Syndrome Syndrome". ThoughtCo. Archived from the original on November 11, 2020. Retrieved November 15, 2019.
  12. ↑ Brians, Paul. "LCD display". Common Errors in English Usage. Archived from the original on March 12, 2017. Retrieved May 1, 2012.
  13. ↑ Memmott, Mark (January 6, 2015). "Do You Suffer From RAS Syndrome?". NPR.org. Archived from the original on October 6, 2020. Retrieved November 15, 2019.
  14. ↑ "15 Redundant Words That Make You Sound Ignorant". rd.com. August 16, 2018. Archived from the original on August 2, 2020. Retrieved March 30, 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.