How about, from the automotive world, a four door sedan.
Don’t forget FAT table.
But I confess, I don’t feel as strongly about these things as the others do…
Personally, I hate it when people say “same difference” unless they are actually talking about comparing math problems. But I am weird.
The fact that the N in “PIN number” means “number” hasn’t the slightest bit of relevance to anything. The same for just about every example given here. It’s just pure anal retentiveness to even care about it, and if it annoys you, that’s your failing, not anyone elses.
PIN Number
ATM Machine
ISBN Number, etc.
Shouldn’t bother anyone who’s mentally stable.
I’m not justifying the annoyance that these cause, I’m just stating that they really really really annoy me
PSU unit
SUV vehicle
CD disc
At McMaster University, the Information Technology Centre (ITC) has recently expanded into more space and as such been renamed the Information Technology Building (ITB).
The problem is, on all school documents, it appears they simply substituted the acronym “ITB” for “ITC” and so all references to the Information Technology Centre building have become references to the Information Technology Building building.
Being such a recent change (2-3 years?) it still makes people laugh.
Actually, what annoys me more is when all instances of an acronym in a document are follwed by a bracketed explanation of their meaning;
“At the end of burning the CD, the TOC (Table Of Contents) will be written, in the case of multisession CDs, a new TOC (Table Of Contents) will be written at the end, superseding the previous TOC (Table Of Contents).”
There’s a show in the TV guide called “Good Sex”. I’m going to show my contempt by watching it repeatedly.
SUT tautologies, for short. And they don’t bother me one bit.
And, of course, “RBIs” is pronounced “Ribbies”.
But what do you call a machine that makes ATMs? (I never claimed to be mentally stable 
)
:head explodes:
Along the lines of ATM machine, PIN number and the rest, my pet peeve is:
HIV virus
Apparently, it’s a virus that infects the human immunodeficiancy virus.
Well, SCUBA can either be a noun or a verb.
As for the noun, SCUBA basically refers to the apparatus that provides the diver with air at depth. That is, the tank, fittings, hose, regulator and mouthpiece. Additional SCUBA ‘gear’ could be the buoyancy compensator, knife, fins, boots, mask, weight belt, etc. So, the apparatus and the additional items are collectively the ‘gear’.
three letter acronyms are rather popular here and (AFAIK) ‘PIN number’ is the only one used this way. my take on it is that ‘PIN’ is a mono-syllable word (as opposed to ‘pee-i-and’) and it is easily mistaken/loss in conversation. ‘PIN number’, on the other hand, is unmistakable and convenient.
Speaking of SCUBA… how about SNUBA?
What do those initials stand for? Nothing. “It’s just a cross between SCUBA and snorkel.” Grrr. Although at least the official company has the decency to not capitalize it.
I thought FOD stood for Foreign Objects and Debris, so FOD Damage would be perfectly acceptable.
A moment of googling shows that there’s even websites devoted to FOD.
As I’m sure most fo you are scratching your heads, wondering what the heck FOD is, it’s a hazard at airports - something as small as a dropped screw can cause severe damage if it’s “ingested” by a jet engine - whether it damages the engine’s innards, or is shot out the back at high speed and hits another airplane or a person.
I work at an airport, and I’ve always known the D in FOD to stand for damage or debris, whichever was more appropriate.
LCD display.
The big signs all over the outside of my dad’s bank declare the place to be “WNB Bank.” Yeah, guess what WNB stands for… Williamsport National Bank.