RAS Syndrome

Redundant Acronym Syndrome syndrome: people incur it all the time. They say an acronym but repeat the final word as well: DVD disc, ATM machine, ISBN number. Were the acronym to be fully expanded, they’re duplicating that final word and saying “digital versatile disc disc.” This used to aggravate me immensely, but the other day I saw a comment that made me rethink the issue.

In response to somebody making a similar complaint to mine, this commenter replied:

I’ve heard that complaint so many times, and naively, in a vacuum, it makes sense, but we live in a world with so many acronyms and so little clarity of communication, just think of trying to ALWAYS repeat the last letter’s word as a kind of checksum on the data compressed in the acronym, and/or so the sentence reads OK even if someone is unfamiliar with acronym…

Brian G., comment on TechDirt

That’s brilliant, and entirely true. With so many acronyms floating around that “last word checksum” can be instrumental in allowing the reader or listener to parse the compressed data. For acronyms with multiple meanings, like NIC, that repetition can inform whether you are referring to a network interface controller or card.

Some other good reasons for RAS syndrome include acronyms of other-language words (please RSVP) and transforming the acronym into a noun, making it redundant in the same way “pine tree” is redundant. Regardless, thinking this way makes me feel a tiny bit better when the self-checkout at Giant asks me to enter my “PIN number.”