"PIN"

[Dan Goodman]

Charles C Doyle wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      "PIN"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I know we have discussed the redundancy of the commonly heard "PIN number"; but have we mentioned the fact that, paradoxically, a PIN (or PIN number) need not be a number at all?  That fact just struck me when I logged on to my university's library account:  There, when I am instructed to enter my PIN, what I type is a series of alphabetic characters, with nary a digit.
>
> As the frequency of the redundant term "PIN number" also suggests, the basis of the acronym, pretty recently coined, has become opaque.
USA Today's tv listings of baseball broadcasts include the phrase "MLB
baseball."

--
Dan Goodman
"I have always depended on the kindness of stranglers."
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Expire
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