Sharp Words

For once, I didn’t wait for a word to be emailed to me. I picked this word myself based on a minor incident this morning.

tautology noun
        a: needless repetition of an idea, statement, or word
        b: an instance of tautology

This word was used by the brainy annoying kid in last week’s Doctor Who (Series 4: The Sontaran Stratagem) in an attempt to take the Doctor down a peg or two (didn’t work of course).  I was reminded of it this morning at the library, when the librarian didn’t at first understand my request for a PIN for their website - she thought at first I asked for a PIN, and then I clarified with “So I can request and renew books”, she replied, “Oh, you want a PIN number!”

Cue internal groan from Catherine.

OK, I admit to being guilty of commiting the act of tautology fairly frequently without realising it. But I’m a bit more aware of it at the moment.  There are other forms of tautology, of course, aside from the common ‘PIN number’, ‘ATM machine’ and ‘GPS system’ constructions, but I can’t think of any brilliant examples at the moment - anyone help me out here?

[Also, on a completely unrelated note, today's 'amusement at weird wording' came when I visited the farmer's market and noticed that the organics stall was selling 'organically reared sausages'. I just had a fun image in my head of lots of sausages with little legs, roaming pesticide-free across the hills.]

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