Kirk Mahoney . com

I heard this today on television.

Problem:
This is a nonsense word.

Explanation:
The “pre” in “pre-planning” is redundant, just as the “back” in “reply back” is redundant.

To plan something is to do think about something before it occurs.

The “pre” prefix also means before.

It makes no sense to think about something before before.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following words (with the quotation marks) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

• “planning” — 51,700,000 matches
• “pre-planning” — 890,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have avoided this “pre-” redundancy by a ratio of 58.1:1, which is okay but not very good, especially in light of nearly one million(!) “pre-planning” matches.

Solution:
“Planning”

I often see and hear this.

Problem:
This phrase is redundant.

Explanation:
The acronym “PIN” means Personal Identification Number, so “PIN Number” means Personal Identification Number Number.

Out of curiosity, I searched with the quotation marks for “PIN number” at Google and got about 2,030,000 matches. Yikes! This is a fairly common problem (at least on the Web).

It seems to me that people who say or write “PIN Number” (or “PIN number”)

• have lost track of the meaning of the individual letters in “PIN”,
• never knew the meaning of the individual letters, or
• are comforted by saying a noun after saying an acronym.

I wonder about the intersection of the population of those who say or write “PIN Number” with the population of those who say or write “ATM Machine” (about which I wrote yesterday). The people in that intersection would be comfortable with sentences such as “I forgot my PIN number at the ATM machine.” — double yikes!

Solutions:
“PIN” or “Personal Identification Number”

I often see and hear this.

Problem:
This phrase is redundant.

Explanation:
The initialism “ATM” means Automated Teller Machine, so “ATM Machine” means Automated Teller Machine Machine.

Out of curiosity, I searched with the quotation marks for “ATM machine” at Google and got about 1,460,000 matches. Yikes! This is a fairly common problem (at least on the Web).

It seems to me that people who say or write “ATM Machine” (or “ATM machine”)

• have lost track of the meaning of the individual letters in “ATM”,
• never knew the meaning of the individual letters, or
• are comforted by saying a noun after saying an initialism.

Solutions:
“ATM” or “Automated Teller Machine”

My post yesterday about “Whether” vs. “If” reminded me about “Whether or not”.

Problem:
Some people use “whether or not” when “whether” is appropriate (and complete!).

Explanation:
It is overkill to include “or not” in sentences such as “He will not say whether or not he wants to leave the company.” This example can be correctly rewritten as “He will not say whether he wants to leave the company.”

In this example, the conjunction “whether” introduces a clause whose uncertainty is unknown. Adding “or not” after “whether” adds no value in such situations. One could say that adding “or not” introduces unnecessary redundancy.

There is a valid use for including “or not” somewhere in a “whether” sentence: when one wants to say “regardless of whether” or “no matter whether”.

For example, both of these sentences contain “whether” and “or not” and are valid:

• “We must depart for the train station in one hour whether or not you have found your swimsuit.”
• “We must depart for the train station in one hour whether you have found your swimsuit or not.”

Either of the above two sentences is a valid substitute for either of the following two sentences:

• “We must depart for the train station in one hour regardless of whether you have found your swimsuit.”
• “We must depart for the train station in one hour no matter whether you have found your swimsuit.”

I believe that the use of “whether or not” in speech as a substitute for “regardless of whether” or “no matter whether” supports my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis. It’s simpler to say “whether or not” (four syllables) than to say “regardless of whether” (six syllables) or “no matter whether” (five syllables).

Solution:
Use “whether” to introduce a clause whose certainty is unknown. Use “whether or not” in speech as a substitute for “regardless of whether” or “no matter whether”; otherwise, avoid using “whether or not”.

I heard this on the “60 Minutes” television program.

Problem:
The adjective “recorded” is redundant for this sentence.

Explanation:
The noun “history” essentially means a record of past events.

So “recorded history” would be translated to a recorded [sic] record of past events.

Solution:
“… the biggest in history.”