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?!

Specializes in Long Term Acute Care, TCU.
BloomNurseRN said:
Still laugh when any older patient asks for cootermin (Coumadin)!

What about when a younger patient asks for COOTERmin 

SARSlee

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Specializes in critical care.
trinitymaster said:
What about when a younger patient asks for COOTERmin 

SARSlee

I'm sorry - our plastic surgeons here don't do lady partsplasty.

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Specializes in CMSRN.
trinitymaster said:
What about when a younger patient asks for COOTERmin 

SARSlee

He he. The younger ones rarely do. And there are many variations: coodamin, cadudamin, warFAIRin. But really, cootermin is the best. 

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Specializes in Pediatrics/Developmental Pediatrics/Research/psych.
Have you ever picked up the phone and the person on the other line says: "Yellow!" (Instead of "Hello!")

I would respond: "Green!"

When my phone greens, I brown and pink up my phone and say yellow!

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Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.
A&Ox6 said:
When my phone greens, I brown and pink up my phone and say yellow!

Hahahahaha, good one!

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Trop-en for Troponin!! sends me over the edge!

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I have another one. I once had a patient tell me he had "tickly-itis" (diverticulitis) when I was taking his health history. Still makes me laugh!

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Yes, many "Mispronunciations" that people assume are a mark of unintelligence are simply regional variations.

The way ex-president Bush and I pronounce "nuclear", for example, has been recognized as an acceptable variation by most dictionaries.

And the use of the singular, gender-neutral "they" is widely accepted as a correct usage these days.

Languages change.

Brandon, sorry, but the spelling of nuclear just doesn't permit for that regional variation. It is truly irritating. Sorry.

"They" just kills me.

"Him and me" did this or that. The right way is "He and I" did whatever.

"Your" (as in "your shoe") instead of "you are", which would rightly be "You're".

I think teachers these days were taught the wrong way, intentionally, and are just passing their errors down to the next generation. It is maddening and it is pitiful.

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Always have done that in Australia, UK and Ireland.

I can barely make out a single word at all when someone from Britain speaks English. It's the darndest thing.

And I like to do accents, but I simply cannot master mimicking an Australian. I think the A's are supposed to sound like I's.

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Specializes in PCCN.
Still laugh when any older patient asks for cootermin (Coumadin)!

lol.Altho not a pronunciation- i've had 2 pts this week ask me if i'll be getting their "rat poison " tonight

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Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.

Also not a pronunciation, but the commercial for the new blood-thinner where you don't have to have freq. blood checks; Guy in the commercial saying he wondered "if I dug deeper I could find something better than Warfarin...." followed by the usual "Ask your doctor if _____ is right for you!"

And the ad where the woman says she and her husband were, just the other day, talking about looking for "a TV experience that fits our lifestyle". . . . Uh, who even TALKS like that? I asked my husband if he was "satisfied with our TV experience" and I got the slow head turn with the what on earth are you talking about look from him! 

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Specializes in critical care.

"Him and me" did this or that. The right way is "He and I" did whatever.

I think "he and I" got so beaten into people's brains that now people use this way to often as well. "She went to dinner with Alex and I."

I also miss adverbs. Terribly. Advertising campaigns are partly to blame for this. "Subway. Eat fresh." What is a "fresh"?

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