Macmillan Holdings, LLC. Grammar Girl, Grammar Girl's, QDnow, and Quick and Dirty Tips are all trademarks of Macmillan Holdings, LLC. Today's topic is redundant acronyms. nivek1385 grammar I've been complaining about these for quite sometime and would just like to inject my agreement. --Chief Director in Chief, ROSA Acronym Division, Dept. of Redundancy Dept. P.S. ROSA Acronym is my term for these acronyms: Redundancy of Speech Acronym...Acronyms http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/redundant-abbreviations.aspx?commentid=18311#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/redundant-abbreviations.aspx?commentid=18311#Comments Sun, 09 Aug 2009 21:12:15 GMT Angelina grammar Is it redundant to say or write "U.S. states"? For instance: "A study on food insecurity and hunger in communities among eight U.S. states identified low income as the number one predictor of these conditions." http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/redundant-abbreviations.aspx?commentid=16230#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/redundant-abbreviations.aspx?commentid=16230#Comments Tue, 24 Mar 2009 02:15:17 GMT Joe B. grammar In my opinion the very worst redundancy has come to be much used since 9/11. The use of the term "year anniversary" needed to be used because the just-plain-wrong "month anniversary" of 9/11 was nearly instantly and universally adopted by the media, and seems to have stuck. Please make it go away! The Department of Redundancy Department, Toronto Canada http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/redundant-abbreviations.aspx?commentid=11340#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/redundant-abbreviations.aspx?commentid=11340#Comments Tue, 08 Jan 2008 17:15:00 GMT Discopants grammar This has been an issue with me. I don't like redundant acronyms. A few years ago the U.S. DoD issued their Common Access Card (CAC) to replace IDs. Quickly everyone was calling it a CAC card. Of course to hear someone from Boston talking about his CAC could start to offend others in the area. I also wanted to share with your audience that the Austin Lounge Lizards (http://www.austinlizards.com/) did an entire song making fun of redundancies called "Big Rio Grande River." One of my favorite lines is "...watching the evening sun setting in the west." http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/redundant-abbreviations.aspx?commentid=3546#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/redundant-abbreviations.aspx?commentid=3546#Comments Fri, 14 Sep 2007 06:24:42 GMT ah the redundancy grammar I thought this was a great topic. It reminded me of my last employment. I worked in a section of the airline industry called PMA maintenance. The funny thing here is that everything you read/talk about in the PMA world reads "PMA parts." PMA stands for Parts Manufacturing Approval. I always found this funny that people would state and write technical documents using PMA parts. Even funnier is that after a short time being employed there I found myself stuck in the same rut! Silly me. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/redundant-abbreviations.aspx?commentid=3226#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/redundant-abbreviations.aspx?commentid=3226#Comments Tue, 11 Sep 2007 23:41:35 GMT Grammar Girl grammar Please see the transcript about formatting vertical lists.http://grammar.qdnow.com/2007/05/24/formatting-vertical-lists.aspx http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/redundant-abbreviations.aspx?commentid=1431#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/redundant-abbreviations.aspx?commentid=1431#Comments Mon, 13 Aug 2007 08:01:37 GMT Grammar Girl grammar Hi, Tim.Periods and commas go inside the quotation marks in the United States. It's reversed in Britain.I agree that "preplanning" and "postplanning" seem silly. I can see how the writing process is different from writing though. You could teach about writing by teaching language skills, whereas you could teach about the writing process by teaching how to avoid playing solitaire, why coffee breaks are essential, and when it's a good idea to join a writing group! http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/redundant-abbreviations.aspx?commentid=1430#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/redundant-abbreviations.aspx?commentid=1430#Comments Mon, 13 Aug 2007 07:59:28 GMT Tim Forkner grammar I have a question regarding an expression I hear constantly. I am a teacher in Georgia, and the first few days of school for the teachers are called either preplanning or pre-planning, depending on the county. The final days of the year are called postplanning or post-planning. I always thought all planning was "pre-" by definition. Since one plans before doing what is being planned, does this make any sense? Post-planning (or postplanning) seems oxymoronic to me (well, really just moronic).These are two examples of Georgian "edubabble" (my favorite neologism).Another current practice that bothers me is adding the word "process" to every word ending in "-ing". Examples are "the writing process", "learning process", and every other "-ing" of which one can think.What are your thoughts on these topics?TimP.S. Did I use the quote marks correctly? http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/redundant-abbreviations.aspx?commentid=1429#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/redundant-abbreviations.aspx?commentid=1429#Comments Sun, 05 Aug 2007 06:58:14 GMT Chris Murray grammar I only just heard this episode (because something changed in the RSS, causing many old episodes to be downloaded), and I'd like to mention a redundant acronym from Ireland.We had a bank called Allied Irish Bank for many years, but then they decided to modernise its name by using its abbreviation AIB. However, they actually called it AIB Bank, which is obviously redundant, but the more correct "AI Bank" would have been misleading, particularly in a country where agriculture is still a dominant industry. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/redundant-abbreviations.aspx?commentid=1428#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/redundant-abbreviations.aspx?commentid=1428#Comments Mon, 11 Jun 2007 14:26:30 GMT Tom grammar I have to step forward in favour of the redundant acronym on syntactic grounds. Once a word disappears into a common abbreviation (such as 'virus' into 'HIV') I don't think it still has the same standing as it once did as a fully pronounced word. The abbreviation then becomes a single lexographic unit (i.e. word) for something. So HIV becomes the new name of a particular virus. Likewise PRC becomes the new name for a type of reaction. So these newly derived English words should behave like any other words of their class. We can have "an influenza virus" so we should be able to have "an HIV virus". Similarly, we can have "an endothermic reaction" so we should be able to have "a PCR reaction". Likewise, words borrowed from other languages. 'Chai' may be the Hindi word for tea, but once it comes into English it ceases to denote 'tea' and starts to denote a particular (-ly delicious) type of tea and should take on the syntactic characteristics of other types of tea. Hence "Earl Grey Tea" is okay and "Chai Tea" is okay. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/redundant-abbreviations.aspx?commentid=1427#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/redundant-abbreviations.aspx?commentid=1427#Comments Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:09:40 GMT Sun, 09 Aug 2009 21:12:15 GMT http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/redundant-abbreviations.aspx feedback@quickanddirtytips.com (Managing Editor) feedback@quickanddirtytips.com (Webmaster) en-us