Department of Redundancy Department

[chomiji]

And can anyone tell me what "RSVP" stands for? And why I am removing the "please" that everyone keeps inserting before it on the official invitations to events like retirement celebrations?

I am sure that someone is going to call me sometime and ask why I am making the online versions of the invitations less polite. But people, c'mon! It means

Répondez s'il-vous-plaît   (= "Please respond" in French)

And I don't want "Please respond if you please" on my (OK, our) intranet site, thankyouverymuch.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled non-nitpicky life.

Comments

[telophase.livejournal.com]

"ATM machine", which I catch myself saying periodically. And luckily I *don't* say "Rio Grande River".

It's the same linguisitc thing that creates stuff like "Torpenhowe Hill", I expect ("Hill hill hill Hill" - I forgot what language 'howe' is, but each successive wave of linguistic invaders took the local word for 'hill' and added their own to it).

[theloomofmoira.livejournal.com]

I think the solution to this problem is to do away with acronyms, asap. ;)

I also hear myself saying things like "put in your PIN number at the ATM machine"... and then it's even worse because *I'm* the one doing it... and God knows I should have no possible excuse, or, er, just that I'm human.

really, though, it is a bad idea for Americans to use French acronyms/initialisms when we can't even manage our own!