"Word" words?

[Joel S. Berson]

Surely "major league soccer" is sufficient.  Isn't it an abbreviation
redundancy, in Arnold's classification, like "ATM machine"?  Unless
one falls prostrate and allows MLS to call their league "Major League
Soccer"!    (Thank heaven I haven't yet heard "major league soccer
soccer."  Even the Eudora spell-checker thinks that's wrong.)

Joel

At 4/28/2008 11:15 AM, Mark Mandel wrote:
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>On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 10:25 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> > At 4/27/2008 07:59 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> >  >exactly as with HIV virus or PIN number, or ATM machine.  But "NFL
> >  >football", like "NBA basketball" or "NHL hockey", is not redundant in
> >  >the same way.
> >
> >  I agree; I was hasty and careless.  Substitute for NFL football
> MLS soccer.
>
>Which = "Major League Soccer soccer", which may differ from high
>school and college soccer in ways analogous to NFL football and the
>rest. No goal, Joel.
>
>--
>Mark Mandel
>
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org