Mispronunciations That Drive You Nuts

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Car-dee-ya-zem.

It's car-di-zem. Or dil-ti-ya-zem.

Cardiazem isn't a real thing.

Can I get an amen?!

Probably the best I've heard was that of a patient reporting to me that her IV line had become "inflamatrated"!

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Specializes in long term care.

Had a nursing instructer (on the subject of oral health) refer to gums, procouncing it like "gooms". Never heard it pronounced like that before...

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Emergency, CEN.
GrumpyRN said:
I'm going to, gently, stir this a bit. 

Orientate, orientated, orientation and orientating are the correct pronunciations/spellings, you yanks decided to corrupt them and ended up with words like orient and oriented. This sound too similar to oriental. Remember, it is called English for a reason. wave.gif.f76ccbc7287c56e63c3d7e6d800ab6c

Well learn something new... I've only ever heard that word in the last couple of years in the ER, but on with the topic of mispronunciations.

As I overheard an irate pt saying... "Don't you conversate me! You don't know nuthin 'bout me! My gentles been hurtin' all day and I'm not going to stand here while you guys just ignore my burnin' gentles!"

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Specializes in Hospice, corrections, psychiatry, rehab, LTC.

My father used to say that my mother was "menustrating".

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Been there,done that said:
"smilin' baby Jesus" for spinal meningitis.... not even close 

Wellll... maybe closer than you think ... ::: searching for a "pearly gates" smilie :::

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HarryTheCat said:

A patient who kept asking for more dilaudid, except that he thought he was being given something called "Delilah". Maybe some sappy love songs on the radio would have helped, but I doubt it.

Cue the singers: :hpygrp: "Forgive me, Dilaudid, I just couldn't take any moo-oore!"

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Specializes in L&D, Women's Health.
GrumpyRN said:
I'm going to, gently, stir this a bit. 

Orientate, orientated, orientation and orientating are the correct pronunciations/spellings, you yanks decided to corrupt them and ended up with words like orient and oriented. This sound too similar to oriental. Remember, it is called English for a reason. 

And, according to Judge Judy, conversate is now in Webster's. (One can still see her cringe when she hears the word!)

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here we go again....both of them are words, in the dictionary.

Two words that drive me crazy are "Conversate" instead of converse, speak, or talk) and "Orientate" instead of orienting or orientation.
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Specializes in Critical Care, Emergency Care.

My RN instructor would always say contradicted instead of contraindicated. It drove me crazy.

PJ, RN, EMT-P

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Dialysis.
Had a nursing instructer (on the subject of oral health) refer to gums, procouncing it like "gooms". Never heard it pronounced like that before...

i hear that every now and then. Mostly from older people, not sure if it's a regional thing or a cultural thing.

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I am a student, not a nurse. I worked in Food and Beverage at a popular place that bring collage students from around the world. As a trainer, it would be a challenge to help the employee to say the words in a way that the guest would understand. Parmesan cheese was rather hard for our Asian friends. I started writing the words down a different way. Par men John tended to work better for them. With their accent, it worked.

As a student, I am having a ruff time. But I plan on doing for myself, what I did for my trainees. Break up words, try a lot of visual tricks, and ask friends to take on the boring job of listen to me actually say the words , to hear if I say them correctly. It's a whole new language, and my tounge doesn't always want to speak it.

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I had a patient recently that swore she took her "Latex" just as prescribed!... Lasix, yup.

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