Thursday, April 18, 2013

The English language can sometimes be a tricky thing. One thing that we constantly use incorrectly in the English language are acronyms. Without notching, we sometimes add words or letters when we use acronyms in a sentence. For example, if you are watching baseball with your buds and Chase Utley hits a home run with two people on base, a common mistake would be saying, "Chase Utley had three RBIs last night!" When you really think about it, saying RBIs doesn't make any sense. Your really saying that he had three Runs Batted Ins. That is totally not right. If you were to say it correctly it would be said like, "Chase Utley had three RBI last night!" Another mistake people make is saying the acronym itself and then adding an additional word to the end, in most cases it would be whatever the last word was. For example, you may have heard your mom or dad say, "I'm going to the ATM machine real fast. You want me to pick up some Taco Bell? When you really think about it, they are saying, "I'm going to the automated teller machine machine." You don't need that extra machine. Same mistake with acronym VIN (Vehicle Identification number). Some people say VIN number, which is just adding the word number again.

2 comments:

  1. I wonder if people do this because they don't actually know that they're saying them incorrectly or they just choose to say the extra word because everyone else does. I'm sure there are instances of both, but I enjoyed this post and will look to correct people the next time they say RBIs, ATM machine or VIN number.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree with Tyler. Sometimes a lot of people, no matter how intelligent they may be, use acronyms incorrectly. I now that am guilty of incorrectly using acronyms even if I don't realize it. I don't think they do it on purpose, it's just a matter of slight ignorance.

    ReplyDelete