pleonasms

[Mark A Mandel]

On Wed, 13 Feb 2002, Donald M Lance wrote:

#> On Wed, 13 Feb 2002, Laurence Horn wrote:
#>>
#>> Aha.  Given what I (think I) know about the variety of English spoken
#>> in Knoxville, that would be an area where you'd want to distinguish
#>> between "ink pen" and "straight pin".
#>
#I don't buy the notion that "ink pen" developed as a disambiguating ploy.
#What is the likelihood that "(straight) pin" or "(safety) pin" or
#"(sticking) pin" would come to mind in a context in which someone asks for
#a(n ink) pen?  I'd say it's way, way under 1%.  In my mind it's more likely
#that the tautologous "ink pen" developed as a way of referring to a
#(fountain) pen or (dipped) pen as opposed, tautologously, to a lead pencil,
#which also occurs in speech.

Q: "Can you lend me a p*n?"

A: "Ink p*n or safety p*n?"

-- Mark A. Mandel
   Linguist at Large