Learn To Say It Correctly!!

nonnie1 · Jul 21, 2008

My personal pet peeve is "I have to go in for "testes" (tests) are they for pick up at the hospital? women can get them too????

mamagoofy · Jul 21, 2008

This is a spoof? Or am I out of line?

You are out of line. no its not a spoof and why would you think it was?

marachne · Jul 21, 2008

Trust me, people in the UK will just think that you've had too much to eat

Maybe things have changed then in the last 20 years, or maybe it's a regionalism, but it has been known as slang for fornication

Nursetastic · Jul 21, 2008

Double negatives drive me crazy! Such as, "I didn't do nothing" and "irregardless".

If you didn't do nothing, you must have done something!

The prefix ir- is used to express the absence of something as is the suffix -less. In grammar, two negatives do not equal a positive. "Irregarless" is being used more frequently and has been added to Webster's Dictionary, but I still can't stand it.

I make many, many mistakes. However, these two have always driven me crazy!

marachne · Jul 21, 2008

You are out of line. no its not a spoof and why would you think it was?

While I didn't think it was a spoof, I think the point is that the way you posted was fairly challenging to read.

I know we live in a modern (post-modern?) texting culture, but unless your name is James Joyce, and you are writing a avant-garde novel, if you want people to read what you write, it is helpful if you use standard forms such as:

Capitalization
Punctuation (that includes apostrophes with contractions)
The right form of a word (too when you mean also, their when you're talking possessive form, etc.)
Paragraphs

I did realize that what you wrote wasn't -- completely one long, run on sentence, and you made some good points. Respect is important. Providing information to people without making them feel ashamed is valuable. But please, recognize that people make judgments based on presentation. And in a forum like this, your written word is your presentation. I wonder how many people didn't read your post b/c appeared as an almost impenetrable string of letters.

It really doesn't take that much more time to use whole (correctly spelled) words, and break thing up with paragraphs.

Respectfully,

m

Nursetastic · Jul 21, 2008

While I didn't think it was a spoof, I think the point is that the way you posted was fairly challenging to read.
I know we live in a modern (post-modern?) texting culture, but unless your name is James Joyce, and you are writing a avant-garde novel, if you want people to read what you write, it is helpful if you use standard forms such as:
Capitalization
Punctuation (that includes apostrophes with contractions)
The right form of a word (too when you mean also, their when you're talking possessive form, etc.)
Paragraphs
I did realize that what you wrote wasn't -- completely one long, run on sentence, and you made some good points. Respect is important. Providing information to people without making them feel ashamed is valuable. But please, recognize that people make judgments based on presentation. And in a forum like this, your written word is your presentation. I wonder how many people didn't read your post b/c appeared as an almost impenetrable string of letters.
It really doesn't take that much more time to use whole (correctly spelled) words, and break thing up with paragraphs.
Respectfully,
m

I still have not read the post. It hurts my eyes just to look at it.

marachne · Jul 21, 2008

I love some expressions that pts use they make me laugh rather than annoy me
sugar diabetes
walking pneumonia

sugar diabetes is/was common usage particularly among southern African Americans. Walking pneumonia was also a common term.

Laughing is ok if it is not in front of patients. As others have noted, by paying attention to the language of our patients, and yes, sometimes using it we can develop rapport and trust.

Not exactly the same, but one of the things I have learned over time is not to always ask people about their pain. I might ask if they are "uncomfortable" or "bothered." A crusty old vet may not want to tell you about his pain b/c it's "no big deal" but he might be willing to discuss his discomfort. And explaining how untreated pain can have an impact on healing may be a way of getting him to agree to some analgesia.

I realize I digress, but the point I'm trying to make is that sometimes we have to meet our patients where they are, not in terms of what we think is right.

Oh, and similes and metaphors can go a long way. I had a pt who wanted to know how he would know his fentanyl patch was working because he wouldn't know when it was actually giving him medicine. I finally used the simile of a soaker hose. That made sense to him, and he relaxed.

morte, LPN, LVN · Jul 21, 2008

I still have not read the post. It hurts my eyes just to look at it.

hmmmm i am old, and i need new glasses....and i read the whole thing without a problem.......

adoyo · Jul 21, 2008

I cannot blame anybody for pronounciation of an English word if he/she is not English since several times I have been asked by an English Person to help spell an english word such as 'banana' as she could not remember whether banana had a double 'nn' or an 'h' at the end!! Sooo, if the English cannot spell some of the english words correctly, how do you expect us who are not English to pronounce English words perfectly all the time??

Cheryl Seneca · Jul 21, 2008

We all know that grammar/pronunciation errors are not the end of the world. I never fault patients or families for their creative (and often amusing) pronunciations because the medical vocabulary can be complicated and a mystery to anyone without a medical background. Nor do colloquialisms (i.e. 'fell out,' 'carry him') bother me.

Nursing, however, is a detail oriented profession. When I hear mispronunciations, particularly of medical terms by medical staff, I wonder if the nurse is of the 'close enough is good enough' mentality and if it carries over into his/her nursing practice. So, yes, I think it is important to care about correctness.

I also think anyone in any profession should not be allowed to work in his given profession if he can't manage to pronounce what it is he does. I have a friend who says she is a real-a-tor (no A between real and tor), another sells jewel-er-y (as opposed to jewel-ree) and one of my state's U.S. senators says he is a former vet-nerian (he's managed to remove not one, but 2, syllables from vet-er-in-arian). My sister, who has a veterinary degree, says that the correct pronunciation of the word was almost the first thing, on the first day of class, that was emphasized. I guess my senator was late for class.

I'm of the opinion that contributors to this thread who belittle those of us who care about correctness likely just don't care to put the effort into 'getting it right.' The length of this thread, which continues to grow, attests to the fact that many medical professionals care about this issue. If nothing else, many of these examples have been very entertaining.

I still make mistakes, particularly regarding pronunciations of new drugs, and appreciate being corrected. It usually takes just once.

Annie09 · Jul 21, 2008

I'm not sure of the ages of the persons making these types of errors, but I've found that as I have advanced in age, these occurences happen to me more often than what I'd like. Perhaps, being on the greater-than side of 35, one's metabolic processes do slow down abit - coupled with exhaustion, stress, less than adequate nutrition, or a combination of any of the above on any given day - not to mention dealing some of our own medical conditions. Yes, there are some types out there who purposely choose to dwell in their own ignorance. However, try as I might, sometimes words just fall out of my mouth sideways at times. Being mindful of this, keeping in mind life from someone else's perspective and having a little bit of empathy from where someone else is coming from may be in order. There . . . I said my piece. Now I need to go take the clothes out of the dishwasher.

stevenschmidt · Jul 21, 2008

megananne7 said:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/centimeter

Actually, if you go here, there's 2 pronunciations of centimeter.

My wife always said "sontimeter", which I found annoying, but chalked up to her having been exposed to the metric system in French class before Science. Now I know it's correct.