Mispronunciations That Drive You Nuts

nurseprnRN, BSN, RN · Mar 4, 2015

Misuse of "their" to mean a single person, as in, "I told that patient that their hand was in a splint. They said it felt fine." This makes me nuts, and I see it in professional writing every day.

Who are all those people and what are they doing with a splinted hand? Why are we telling the patient about them? And how do they all know how it feels?

You have two choices if you want to avoid using "him or her" or "his or hers." You can recast your sentence to make everything plural, including the verbs(!), thus:

Instead of, "Each officer is responsible for his or her private car," you say

"All officers are responsible for their private cars."

OR

You can often avoid gender adjectives altogether by rethinking the sentence, thus:

Instead of, "Each nursing student was told to polish his or her shoes," you say,

"Each student was told to wear polished shoes."

lilhemc · Mar 4, 2015

Have you ever picked up the phone and the person on the other line says: "Yellow!" (Instead of "Hello!")

I would respond: "Green!"

lilhemc · Mar 4, 2015

I've heard "FOIL-ledge" (like aluminum). Oh, and "alu-MIN-num".

aellisrn · Mar 4, 2015

Alls timers for Alzheimer's

Or "old timer's disease" for Alzheimer's

lol

aellisrn · Mar 4, 2015

Not medical, but the home improvement store Lowe's; my mother in law calls it "Loads" and it drives me NUTS!!

Oh, and in my husband's texts he always uses want in the wrong context. Instead of typing "She won't do that"..... he texts "She want do that"

I think "won't" is one of those southern words like "ain't"

I'm from Mississippi and I have a very strong southern accent, I probably mis-pronounce lots of things! Bahahaha

lilhemc · Mar 5, 2015

Another one I've heard is "enamel" pronounced like "animal" instead of "en-NA-mel".

"Brush twice a day to keep your gum and 'animal' healthy."

ixchel · Mar 6, 2015

Another one I've heard is "enamel" pronounced like "animal" instead of "en-NA-mel".
"Brush twice a day to keep your gum and 'animal' healthy."

Halitosis .... Maiming innocent puppies since the dawn of time.

anewsns · Mar 6, 2015

somebody called valium, valleyoom the other day

icuRNmaggie, BSN, RN · Mar 6, 2015

"new bang" for nubain

mariebailey, MSN, RN · Mar 6, 2015

For some reason, at my hospital, they will refer to MRSA (sounds like Mersa) as M-R-S-A; in other words, they'll spell the acronym out when referring to it.

Red Kryptonite · Mar 6, 2015

"new bang" for nubain

Sounds more like slang for a recently acquired boyfriend or girlfriend.

For some reason, at my hospital, they will refer to MRSA (sounds like Mersa) as M-R-S-A; in other words, they'll spell the acronym out when referring to it.

This is just people being pedantic and trying to sound superior. I'd purposely say "mersa" more than necessary just to cheese them off.

lpoore · Mar 6, 2015

I work in hospice and we have had a few patients and families that call Hospice "hostage" or "hos-pick". I've also heard oxygen said many different ways.