THE AMATEUR WORD NERD: Have a cup of tea tea by the big river river

By Barbara McAlister

Word of the Day: Chai

You might already know that if you ask for chai tea, you are literally asking for “tea tea'” because chai is the Hindi word for tea. Tea is the national beverage of India and although the British commercialized the production of tea, it was an integral part of Indian culture long before the British arrived. Most Indians drink tea boiled with milk and sugar, so the word has popularly come to mean tea with milk. Americans have no problem with the phrase chai tea, but if you ask for naan bread to go with your chai tea in an Indian restaurant, you’ve just asked for bread bread with your tea tea.
There are other examples of foreign words becoming unintended redundancies. “Sahara” is Arabic for desert, so Sahara Desert is literally desert desert. “Gobi” is Mongolian for desert, so similar result. “Mississippi” is Alonquin for big river, so to say “Mississippi River” is to say “big river river.” And if you’ve heard of the La Brea Tar Pits in the heart of Los Angeles, you may know that “la brea” is Spanish for tar and this famous tourist site is called the Tar Tar Pits’
This is not quite the same thing as repetitive acronym syndrome, or RAS, the use of a redundant word with an acronym. You are guilty of RAS if you use the phrase ‘”PIN number,” since PIN stands for personal identity number, so you’re saying “personal identity number number.” The same goes for ATM machine,” because ATM stands for automated teller machine. The final word is unnecessarily repeated in UPC code, PDF format, LCD display or SAT test. Or RAS syndrome.