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.

Okk... I think I get it. But just to be sure... *speaks into the microphone* Can you use it in a sentence?

Ok :)

"The changes made in the schedule will affect your personal life big time."

"You might not notice the effect the meds have on Grandma for awhile."

Then there's the usage that always screws people up: "pt has a flat affect" is correct. "I'm trying to effect a change" is also correct.

:)

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I'm sure these are all over this thread, but here's my Pet Peeve List:

~ "Phen-uh-gren". Hate that.

~ "O2 stat". Hate that too.

~ the new grad is "being orientated" to the unit. Seriously?

~ a person does NOT have "exasperation of COPD!" Stop that!

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Specializes in LTC, Acute Care.

The classic one that gets MTs as newbies is followup vs. follow up. When I started MT, I learned it this way--if I could drop the word "up" from "follow up" and the sentence still made sense, then that was my choice. ("I asked him to follow up in 4 weeks for a recheck." If dropping the word "up" made no sense, then "followup" was my word. ("I instructed him to come back for a scheduled followup in 4 weeks.") Slick, huh?

Affect/effect was quite another thing, yet sometimes a headache. The ones that make me think are sometime vs. some time, everyday vs. every day, etc.

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My favorite is when the staff tells me that the patient needs her pain pills, you know the one with grey hair, in a wheel chair, she has pictures of her family on the bed side stand. - Thanks, that narrows it down to 20 or so

Arrrgh. I do home visits at night, and believe me, no one has an address that can be read in the dark from the street, at least not with these 50-something eyes.

They all say they'll have the light on, but when 15 out of 20 houses on the block have the light on, it's not exactly helpful.:banghead::banghead::banghead:

As a hospice nurse, I can scare the h3ll out of people if I go to the wrong house. :chuckle

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lord, god, don't come down where i live. you'd have a spasm, sure as the world.

i have arthritis and a herniated disc in my back (yes, at 28), and i got a twinge as i was getting up from my stool the other day, and one of my older patients made the observation,

"you got a little hitch in yer gitalong".

i actually love colloquialisms. you might be too young to remember the old-time singer tennessee ernie ford, but i recall him using that very phrase on an episode of "i love lucy." regional speech isn't necessarily ignorant--it's colorful. a good place to find some of this down home flavor is the andy griffith show, but only the first couple of seasons. as the show gained in popularity, the writers "smoothed out" a lot of the "hick" speech and mannerisms from andy and barney and let characters such as the darling family and ernest t. bass take over as the countrified folks.

i was raised talking this way, and wherever i go that is not in the south, people look at me like i'm from another planet. a preceptor of mine once said if i got much past kentucky, i better take a translator along!

oh and if you think my english is funny, wait till you hear me lapse off into spanish!

thanks for sharing this.

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I know how AngelfireRN feels. When I moved from Kentucky to California as a child I would say hitch in my getalong and trying to come down with a cold. No end to the torment I got saying things I had heard all my life.

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that's a colloquial. dictionary ,it's frustrated .lol ,sue

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I love most colloquials too!esp. when they save 4-5 other words from being said!. arkansas ppl say "fixing on gettin sick" or "fixin on rainin"

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most of my life (I have lived in about 10 states), I have only ever heard "Jag-wahr" Rarely does someone say Jag-U-ar. Do you call the cat, Jaguar, "Jag U ar" too? JagWAR. Tomato, potato, etc.... I'm still confused on why in the N.E. that people who are vomiting say they are "throwing...." I hope I'm not with them when they are throwing their vomit.... :no:

I'm not sure if this has been addressed yet because I didn't read the whole thread...

I'm from the north east and I've never heard anyone say they are "throwing" but we say they are "throwing up". That results in a pile of "throw up" on the floor. Is this what you are saying you are confused by? If it is, I didn't realize "throwing up", as in vomiting, was a regional thing.

What about "mine as well" instead of "might as well". UGH.

AMNIOdarone instead of AMIOdarone.

Oh, I have a bunch but of course can't think of any others right now.

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Specializes in med-surg, psych, ER, school nurse-CRNP.

RN/writer,

I AM too young to remember, but I have every season of Lucy and Andy on DVD and I know exactly which episode you mean. That was part of what made it so sweet. Where I live, we DO talk like that.

I had to give our new NP a crash course on terms when she hired in. She'd never heard of a "sinking spell" or "an attack of the vapors", did not know what a "rising" was, had no clue about "dropsy". It was quite an experience for her, but she's doing great.

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Specializes in ICU.

I make no claims for this being authentic or not. I heard about a nurse who documented that a patient had 'Gill and Barry Syndrome' ...or Guillain-Barre syndrome!

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I had to give our new NP a crash course on terms when she hired in. She'd never heard of a "sinking spell" or "an attack of the vapors", did not know what a "rising" was, had no clue about "dropsy". It was quite an experience for her, but she's doing great.

I need a crash course in those terms as well! :)

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