Nigeria: Useless Repetitions You Should Avoid in English (III)

29 December 2013

I apologize for my inability to write my column these past weeks. I visited Nigeria and didn't have the time to write. This week, I continue with the series I started on December 1. I am writing this from Nigeria, but by the time you will read this, I'll be back to my base in the United States.

58. The RAS syndrome. The phrase stands for Redundant Acronym Syndrome syndrome. The phrase intentionally repeats "syndrome" to underline the phenomenon it describes. It is the tendency to pronounce the last letter of an acronym along with the acronym itself, thus unintentionally saying it twice. I wrote about this in a June 9, 2013 titled "Between Useless and Useful Tautologies in English."

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