>>>>In UK only bank staff would call it ATM - Cashpoint, Cash machine, hole in the wall
>>>
>>>Visiting home I was surprised that these things are finally taking root there. And they have a new word for it: bankomat.
>>
>>What an ugly, dated word, like laundromat, or those old self-serve cafes from the 60s, where everything was behind a perspex lift-up door, you know, I can't remember now - servomat or someat like it.
>
>It's still better than any TLA. It will stick.

I guess ...

>
>While we're at the ATM subject - why are these guys called "tellers"? Aren't they supposed to specifically not tell anyone what business you had with them?

You've heard the expression "untold millions died"?

To tell is another word for to count
To prove is another word for to test, et al

You're right: English has used up every possible combination of vowels and consenants, except for those that are reserved for aliens' names, such as "Zorkrak" (although that's possbibly your language for diaper rash) and, thus being desperately short of them we're forced to double-up :-)

While on that subject, why do aliens always come from a planet with latin roots to its name, such as "Arboria"?
Still on Latin, you're a scholar, I'd always understood that latin adjectives agreed with their nouns, such as "Bigus Dicus". And Magnus is very typical, being of the 3 main declensions: "us", "a" and "um".

Why is it then that they refer to artists' "Magnum Opus"? Shouldn't that be "Opus Magnus"?