Crime and prevention purposes

Near where I live is a cash machine (ATM) with the following warning:

This ATM is monitored for crime and prevention purposes

The way I read this, the bank is monitoring the cash machine for two reasons: 'crime purposes' and 'prevention purposes'. The first is illegal, the second nonsensical (prevention of what?). Perhaps the bank means it is monitoring the ATM for 'crime-prevention purposes'...

Then again, if I wake up tomorrow to find I haven't got a penny in my account, I can't say I haven't been warned.

Incidentally, it's interesting the number of terms there are for ATMs, at least in the UK. As well as 'cash machine' and 'cashpoint', there's also 'hole in the wall' - and the OED adds 'cash dispenser', which to be honest I've never heard used. Any more out there?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

BTM - Beer Token Machine

Incidentally happy 40th birthday to the ATM this week!

JD (The Engine Room) said...

Ha, you've just reminded me that when the £2 coin was introduced, a couple of people I knew started referring to them as 'beer tokens'... You'd need a £3 coin now really - but that's inflation for you!