Learn To Say It Correctly!!

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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.

RNOTODAY said:
I hate to say it, but it bothers me too...lol not so much lay people, but I think if we are professionals in the field we should be expected to pronounce (and spell!!) words correctly. ESPECIALLY words pertaining to work....

and if I hear "mines" as in "MineS is better than yours" Im going to scream.

I love the "me and him had went to the store and was trying to find them Twinkies but all we was able to find was them HoHos"

??

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

eyknough, I'm not picking on you, but yours is the most recent of dozens of similarly-voiced complaints re: "You say "son-timeter", and I say "cen-timeter". I'm intrigued by the fact this issue was raised on the first page of this thread and, 3 years later, it's still being broached. I figure that, for some, it's right up there at "scratching fingernails on blackboard" level in terms of its irritability quotient.

I think that the use of the "sontimeter" pronunciation is much more prevalent in medical schools, which are impenetrable bastions of tradition. 30 years ago it was used universally by the physicians at the large Ivy League university hospital at which I worked. You got into the habit of using it without thinking. At one point I was working on a research study with a young assistant professor, very recently out of training, and asked him about the difference in pronunciation. He told me that his professors in med school had made a huge deal of it, and that the use of the "centimeter" pronunciation was entirely unacceptable, and would earn one an F. Students learned VERY quickly that it was no joke, and the experience could prove highly traumatic. I, myself, had been witness to verbal abuse dished out to nurses and other hospital personnel re: their choice of pronunciation, and I didn't have a problem believing him. In the 30 years since, I've heard that story reinforced by at least 25 or 30 physicians when relating their respective med school experiences.

But I recall, even back then, that many non-medical personnel would have that same "they think they're better than us" visceral response when they would hear the use of the "sontimeter" pronunciation in a healthcare setting. In a way, they may have a point. There persists in medicine this "member of the fraternity" attitude (and it's not limited to physicians), and the insistence on use of long outdated special pronunciations for certain words is kind of like the "secret handshake". I don't think that it is, in any way, a conscious attitude. But traditions can take a long, long time to die.

As for me, I'm not at all bothered by either pronunciation. Whatever floats your boat.

By the way, I LOVED the BM/TPN story. Priceless!!

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Specializes in Emergency, Telemetry, Transplant.
xtxrn said:
OK, this is minor--- just heard this week on the Food Network.... expresso is the American version (aka not correct- LOL) for espresso ? I'm just glad I don't like coffee 

Sorry off topic, but hit a pet peeve of mine...the Food Network has never been very good with historic and scientific facts. Most of the time they just say what they want to say.

Also, does anyone else get upset when the "wash" their hands on the Food Network? They handle raw chicken, rinse their hand with cold water, dry them with a paper towel and then handle salad ingredients with those same hands! Eww....

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Specializes in Emergency, Telemetry, Transplant.
Not_A_Hat_Person said:
"They" and "their" can be used as a singular, instead of "his or her", to refer to someone of unknown gender.

I did that on an assigment in an English class for my BSN...used 'they' when referring to a singular person of unknown gender. Lost points for not using he/she.

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Specializes in Emergency, Telemetry, Transplant.
charlottegirl said:
Once I had a patient with "galactose" intolerance.

Well, galactose is a real sugar. Not sure if someone can be intolerant to it (probably so, people can be intolerant to just about anything).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactose

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psu_213 said:
Sorry off topic, but hit a pet peeve of mine...the Food Network has never been very good with historic and scientific facts. Most of the time they just say what they want to say.

Also, does anyone else get upset when the "wash" their hands on the Food Network? They handle raw chicken, rinse their hand with cold water, dry them with a paper towel and then handle salad ingredients with those same hands! Eww....

Does this help? 

https://www.1stincoffee.com/what-is-espresso

Disagree w/Food Network not being good w/facts about food. Would I go to them for info on the Civil War? Uh... no ?

About the handwashing- it's a demo- if they washed their hands for the full time every time they needed to, we'd be watching The Hand-watching Network- 

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Specializes in CEN, CPEN, RN-BC.

"Car-eh-dee-ah-zem" for cardizem

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Specializes in ER, progressive care.

meTROpolol instead of meTOprolol

ATkinson's instead of ADDison's

ALTimer's instead of ALZheimer's

SONimeter instead of CENTImeter (when I first heard the term sonimeter I thought it was a new form of measurement!)

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"Me and him had went real quick to the more bigger store for some of them purple ones but they was out so we buyed some green ones and blue one instead"

This one got the spell check ticked off ?

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Specializes in IMCU.

What about:

"where are you at"

"where I am at..."

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Specializes in IMCU.

I think the centimeter/sontimeter one is funny. Even if they were trying to pronounce it the French way, they are only pronouncing half the word in French and the rest with an American accent. Go figure.

Of course I only think it is funny because I don't hear it daily.

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DolceVita said:
What about:

"where are you at"

"where I am at..."

Sounds "yankee" (I'm in the midwest, but spent years in TX... the "at" drove them nuts where I was )

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