Learn To Say It Correctly!!

[SheriLynnRN]

Doesn't it just drive you insane when someone tells you that Mr. Smith's O2 STAT is 96%?

It's O2 SAT people! Sat, short for saturation. I even hear respiratory therapists saying this. I am sooooo tempted to say something next time, but I know it's just petty, so I needed to vent here. Thank you.

[Wishinonastar, BSN]

Hey maybe it was hallucinations about his Ipod?

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

"sontimeter bugs the heck out of me too!"

It's actually more accurate if you consider the language from which it derives, and I don't care which way people say that so long as they don't mistake it for millimeter.

When I moved from east coast to west, after getting many funny looks I discovered that on one side, it's an-jye-nuh, and on the other it's an-j'nuh. I got used to using the local pronunciation and then moved back, and got looked at funny all over again. I started making a joke of it with my patients so they didn't think I was nuts: "It's an-jye-nah if your cardiologist went to harvard, and an-j'nuh if your cardiologist went to stanford." or vice versa, I forget now.

(BTW, although many physicians mistake themselves for deities and think their words are sacred, "Annunciation" is used in a whole 'nother area of human experience, lol. "Enunciation" refers to clarity of speech, not the word's individual syllable sounds)

[tele jelly]

pera-sis-tah-lu-sis instead of peristalsis. GRRRRRRRRRRRR. Lost all respect for a professor over this in nutrition....ahg.

orienTATed instead of oriented. you sound like a total hick when you say it like that.

[belle005]

tele jelly said:

orienTATed instead of oriented. you sound like a total hick when you say it like that.

Everyone I have ever worked with says "orientated". So, we agree that's wrong then? I thought maybe it was just me! I learned A&O (alert & oriented) in school. But I'm the only one using the word oriented. I was starting to doubt myself.

[talaxandra]

As has been discussed ad infinitum on this thread, oriented and orientated are geographically determined and neither's more or less correct than the other.

[rn/writer, RN]

Staff request: Let's not hash and rehash "oriented vs. orientated" yet another time.

People in the US prefer "oriented" and wince at "orientated."

People outside the US use "orientated" with no problem.

Can we just leave it at that?

Thanks.

[I♥Dexter]

When I hear a healthcare worker talk about a patient's O2 stats, it just makes me crazy! I haven't had the guts to correct anyone yet, though!

I also have a little trouble taking someone seriously as a professional, when they can't seem to decipher when to use which of the following: then/than, its/it's, they're/there/their, to/too, lose/loose, advise/advice, etc... Oh and when someone says that they should of, could of or would of... the use of "of" instead of "have", gets to me too!! haha!!

I enjoyed reading this thread a lot!!

[NewbieNurse82]

Yeah, add me to that list... bugs me like no other, lol!

I'm too nice to correct them most of the time

[vanburbian]

Wow

So very happy I am not alone in these concerns. I will be cancelling that upcoming therapy appointment now. I'm normal after all.

[eyknough]

What a great thread! I've had a couple moments when I ask myself what school these people go to. lol

My favorite one to pick on is when a nurse reports that a patient has a "UA".... Uh, you mean UTI, which was diagnosed using a UA?

I had a nurse tell me that a patient was on the BM watch list because they hadn't had a BM in 3 days. I said "But she's not eating!" To which she responded, well she's on TPN so she should be pooping something.

Really, people? Really?! We are hooking that TPN to a PICC line, not a feeding tube...

Sontimeters really gets under my skin, too.

[DavidFR, BSN, MSN, RN]

Once had a colleague who used to often say a patient was "a diabetic induced steroid"

Once saw on a discharge summary: "on biopsy his lover was cirrhotic."

[DolceVita, ADN, BSN, RN]

Having heard my instructors' dreadful pronunciation, then taken Kaplan and heard that dreadful pronunciation, I am completely paranoid.

I bought Taber's for my iphone and it gives the pronunciation for almost everything. If I don't have that I go to the Merck manual online. I know everyone mispronounces stuff sometimes and/or trips over their words -- people can tell the difference.

If someone corrects my pronunciation I thank them. Even if their motives were to stop me annoying them. They have done me a big favour.

This stuff starts at nursing school.