My two-year-old grandson Axel increases his communication skills every week. His latest new skill is to announce that "I want not want" yogurt or apples or whatever it is he doesn't want. This sounds pretty illiterately redundant but it is actually quite brilliant (spoken with grandmotherly pride, of course!)

Children develop language with certain inherent rules. One rule Axel knows intuitively is that the subject (I) is followed by a verb (want). He hasn't learned that the negative transformation of that verb "want" is "don't want"-- and he hasn't caught on that he can drop the initial "want" and just say "I don't want." But he will learn that really quickly, trust me.

So how do we explain the redundancies that creep into our (hopefully) more mature language?

ATM machine (but ATM means: Automated Teller Machine)

Absolutely complete (how can complete be not absolute?)

Advance planning (when doesn't planning happen in advance?)

CPU Unit (CPU=Central Processing Unit)

PIN number (Personal Identification Number)

You get the idea: "Life is the elimination of what is dead." (Wallace Stevens)

...and Axel is the most alive creature in my life!