With the git.git repository:
$ git show abcd error: short SHA1 abcd is ambiguous. error: short SHA1 abcd is ambiguous. fatal: ambiguous argument 'abcd': unknown revision or path not in the working tree. Use '--' to separate paths from revisions
The "is ambiguous" message shouldn't be shown twice.
The first error is printed by revision.c:1796 (a call to handle_revision_arg), and the second by revision.c:1808 (a call to verify_filename). I don't see an easy way to suppress it.