RAS syndrome (short for "redundant acronym syndrome syndrome"), also known as PNS syndrome ("PIN number syndrome syndrome", which expands to "personal identification number number syndrome syndrome") or RAP phrases ("redundant acronym phrase phrases"), refers to the use of one or more of the words that make up an acronym or initialism in conjunction with the abbreviated form, thus in effect repeating one or more words.
A person is humorously said to suffer from RAS syndrome when he or she redundantly uses one or more of the words that make up an acronym or initialism with the abbreviation itself. Usage commentators consider such redundant acronyms poor style and an error to be avoided in writing, though they are common in speech. The degree to which there is a need to avoid pleonasms such as redundant acronyms depends on one's balance point of prescriptivism (ideas about how language should be used) versus descriptivism (the realities of how natural language is used). For writing intended to persuade, impress, or avoid criticism, usage guides advise writers to avoid pleonasm as much as possible, not because such usage is always "wrong", but rather because most of one's audience may believe that it is always wrong.
The term RAS syndrome is itself intentionally redundant, and thus is an example of self-referential humor.
Read more about RAS Syndrome: Origin, Examples, Reasons For Use, Non-examples
Famous quotes containing the word syndrome:
“Women are taught that their main goal in life is to serve others—first men, and later, children. This prescription leads to enormous problems, for it is supposed to be carried out as if women did not have needs of their own, as if one could serve others without simultaneously attending to one’s own interests and desires. Carried to its “perfection,” it produces the martyr syndrome or the smothering wife and mother.”
—Jean Baker Miller (20th century)