pleonasms: ink pen

[Jewls2u]

I wonder if ink pen came about because prior to there being an ink pen,
there was only pen and ink...two completely seperate things. It seems
natural that when you put the two together they would become an ink
pen...much like a chocolate peanut butter cup.

Julienne

-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
Of Lynne Murphy
Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2002 2:39 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: pleonasms: ink pen


Donald Lance said:

>>
> 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.

But those of us without pin/pen merger don't say 'ink pen'.  The phrase has
never come out of my mouth--I swear!  If i needed to differentiate it from
a non-ink pen, I'd call it a 'regular pen' or some such thing.

I'm betting that it's more likely heard (or started out in) contexts where
you do have some ambiguity.  You'd probably hear "I need an ink pen" or "Do
you have an ink pen" but not "I wrote it with an ink pen".

The claim is not necessarily that it is now only a disambiguating thing
(since if it were, we'd never need to see it in writing), but that it arose
in order to disambiguate in those regions where it can be phonetically
ambiguous.  Then it got lexicalised as a compound--a synonym for the most
usual sense of 'pen'.  And it's not spread terribly far outside pen/pin
merger territory because (a) it's not useful in such places--so motivation
for it, and (b) most likely prestige factors concerning the dialects
involved.

Lynne

Dr M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
Acting Director, MA in Applied Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

phone +44-(0)1273-678844
fax   +44-(0)1273-671320