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.

My MIL and SIL call McDonald's "Mac-Donald's" so minor, yet irritating. Neither My husband or my FIL call it that.

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I haven't heard anyone say "stat" instead of "sat" but...

My personal pet peeves:

"phernegan" or some other twisted form of "phenergan"

"Nucular" to which I respond "How do you spell that?". It's "nuclear" people!

"Scrip"...as in, "Lucky1RN, what do you think of this patient's rhythm scrip?" Uh...what's a scrip? Do you mean "strip"?

"Sontimeter"...as in "the patient's wound is 2 sontimeters wide". It's "centimeter". Do you say a gumball costs 1 sont? Nooooo.

Yeah, I'm a bit picky about language! I could go on and on. Expresso instead of espresso. Orientated instead of oriented. Prostrate instead of prostate. Ok...I'll shut up now.

I had a professor who used to say sontimeter, oh my god it annoyed me, but someone told me that some canadians say sontimeter now I don't know how true that is but it is very annoying.

I get so confused when professors pronounce words differently, I never know which one is saying it correctly.

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.

How do y'all say umbilicus, I hear it said 2 ways from our instructors and one way drives me nuts so I stick to the way I think it sounds. :p I prefer it said um-bill-icus but some of our teachers says um-ba-like-us is how it sounds.

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Specializes in Gerontology, Med surg, Home Health.

Just say belly button!:lol2:

I was an English major in college and still believe in using proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation no matter what I'm doing. My kids laugh and say I'm the only person they know who uses correct everything when sending a text message. I've gone so far as to send a letter to the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles because the sentence structure on the inspection stickers was incorrect!

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OMIGOD, Mermaid - I HAVE FOUND A KINDRED SPIRIT!!!

My mother was an English teacher before she retired and I'm a terrible grammar cop as a result. I also write as a hobby. I want to walk around with a red pen most of the time and just mark stuff up with corrections.

An "'s" used as a plural sends my head spinning.

Vowel swings in drug names I don't criticize since sometimes they're regional in nature. Completely incorrect pronunciations (like putting in "R's" when there are none to put in) are a different ball game.

The other day I heard an RN say "supposably". Actually, she said it a couple of times in the same line of speaking as she reiterated her point, reinforcing for me that its use was no accident. Unfortunately that knocked her down a bit in my book. She has a college degree and outranks me (I'm in the Air Force); I (foolishly?) expected a bit more than that.

And when, oh when are folks going to learn it's the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, and is therefore HIPAA and not HIPPA?? Not that most people can even correctly interpret the law in the first place, but they could at least learn the acronym!!

A military group, like the Air Force Nurse Corps, is a CORPS, not a corp. I've given up on that one - and while we're venting, we haven't been the "Airforce" since the Women's Airforce Service Pilots in WWII. We're an AIR FORCE, two words - the USAF, not the USA; there's a whole other branch of the military as well as a country that's the USA.

My husband is British so we laugh a lot at my house at the regionally different pronunciations and even spellings between the two forms of English - and he's now a realtor, so he often gives me stuff to proofread as he gets used to the American way of writing (it is actually very different, believe it or not)!

Ever read Eats, Shoots, and Leaves? If not I highly recommend it!

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Specializes in Gerontology, Med surg, Home Health.

I've read it at least 4 times! No one will hang any postings in my building now without showing them to me first to make sure they're correct. It's nice to know there are a few of us left who care about the language.

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I do not know where you think the legitimacy of this is debated. It has been in standard use since the 1800's and very evident in English literature. Brits use either. Perhaps Americans don't like it or use it -- that is perfectly OK. I don't use it because I live in the USA.

Then again I hear people say conversate here all the time. Now that is unbelievable.:lol2:

Being married to a Brit, and having spent a good chunk of my life as a military dependent or a military member living all over the place, we hear it all at my house.

Here's the one that cracks me up, and I wonder what Americans think when DH says it: in the US, "reckon", as in, "what do you reckon?" borders on 'country' and 'hick' and is sometimes taken as the speaker being uneducated and not knowing any better. I know that in the UK it's perfectly acceptable to say in normal conversation.

I know DH has worked with Americans for pretty much his whole adult life, and he's smart and he's educated, but he's in real estate now and we're living in Texas...we knew a lot of Brits in NC but he's a novelty here...:uhoh3:

Also - I just thought of a couple more - alright and all right. "Alright" is improper and very informal; it sort of wheedled its way into acceptance but should never be used in edited writing. Then there's "alot". "Alot" isn't a word - watch your spell checker flag it when it's typed on the computer. It's "a lot".

Oh - "it's" and "its" - the former is the contraction for "it is" and "it has" and the latter shows neutered ownership for an inanimate object.

I need to get off this forum....:eek::cool:

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I need to get off this forum....:eek::cool:
Noooo! Don't gooooo! We need you here.

Along with "Eats, Shoots & Leaves," I like "Lapsing into a Comma," and "Out of the Loud Hound of Darkness." Oh, and, "Walking on Alligators." Brilliant and hilarious books on usage that are worth their weight in chocolate truffles.

Does your husband gnash his teeth (as I do) when people insist on saying "ree-luh-ter" instead of "real-tore?"

I wonder how many folks know that there is no such word as its'.

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My daughter won't say me or I. She just refers to herself in the third person. Although she is barely 3 LOL She has been doing this since she was barely 2.

Everything is Sophia this or Sophia that or Sophia just needs.....

I am the same way and I am much older than your daughter and I refer to myself in third person depending on the situation

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
I am the same way and I am much older than your daughter and I refer to myself in third person depending on the situation

She does it in every situation. It's cute at 3 though, in adults, not so much :p

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Yeah, Miranda doesn't like it one bit! :D

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She does it in every situation. It's cute at 3 though, in adults, not so much :p

isn't this normal at a certain age?...and potentially indicative of psych issues if carried beyond that?

Was just reading someone's take home final for bio last week, the teacher made an error in a sentence (I think).

She stated "plagiarism will be awarded with a zero". me thinks that the "with" should not be there? And, no, the student was NOT looking for my input.

I am nowhere near in miranda's league, but i am frequently the go to person in the group, were ever I may be. Perhaps that is a sad commentary on the level of knowledge extent in the general nursing "public".

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