"CENTI"meter vs "SONO"meter

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I have no idea why nurses feel the need to pronounce this simple word in such a rediculously affected manner. I was a physics and math major and not until nursing did I EVER hear someone pronounce centimeter as sonometer. It makes me want to hurl!!!

My respiratory instructor pronounced that "resp EYE ra tory". Drove me up a wall. I know it's not necessarily incorrect, just obnoxious. Sontimeter gets on my nerves too.

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Specializes in M/S, MICU, CVICU, SICU, ER, Trauma, NICU.

Centi..i.e. like "cent"/"scenti"

Sono? As in sonogram?

Or Son-TO.

I am confuzzled.

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Specializes in NICU.

I pronounce it sonometer and I am not trying to be pretentious. It's honestly just second nature to me at this point (I had instructors who pronounced it like that and it just kinda stuck). If that's a great offense to people or something that is seen as un-American, that seems a bit silly.

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Hey itiswhatitis

I couldn't agree more! Hurl, it is!!!!

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Specializes in Psych/CD/Medical/Emp Hlth/Staff ED.

There is a difference between pronouncing a word differently and using an entirely different word. Being married to a math teacher, I was asked to point out that the "centi" part of centimeter is too important to be taken lightly and that using "sono" and "centi" interchangeably is offensive (to math teachers anyway).

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I'm in school studying to be a transcriptionist, so when they say sonometer, they're saying centimeter? Is that right? Or am I getting this wrong?

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Specializes in Critical Care.
1 hour ago, Frozen Roze said:

I'm in school studying to be a transcriptionist, so when they say sonometer, they're saying centimeter? Is that right? Or am I getting this wrong?

They're doing a very poor job of saying centimeter, yes.

Some of these grammatically impaired MDs and Nurses use the pronunciation "sonto-meter" which is at least a little closer.  A "sonometer" is indeed an actual thing, but it's a device for measuring the frequency of sounds, not a unit of measurement that represents one-one hundredth of a meter, thus the prefix "centi". 

Supposedly the reason for this is that it's the French pronunciation, even though that's not at all how the French pronounce centimeter.

Oddly these people only mispronounce the term "cent" in the context of the term "centimeter", they don't say something costs "two dollars and thirty-nine sonts", or that "ten is fifty persont of twenty".

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Specializes in ER.

It is just another variation in the English language. There are many regional differences. Language is fluid, it's always changing. It is what people use, and what is understood by others. There is no right or wrong.

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Specializes in Critical Care.
1 hour ago, Emergent said:

It is just another variation in the English language. There are many regional differences. Language is fluid, it's always changing. It is what people use, and what is understood by others. There is no right or wrong.

The English is constantly changing and evolving, pronunciations may morph to sound more delicate or firm, new slang words may enter more mainstream use because they are more onomatopoetic, etc.  These are not necessarily right or wrong since these changes serve the purpose of more effectively communicating the thoughts, feelings, or other commonly abstract topics the words are referring to.

The prefixes that define scientific terms however aren't flexible, and whether a hundredth of a meter is a centimeter is correct, a sonometer isn't.  If someone starting calling the number '10' a 'boop' then that is incorrect, not a different view of what 10 is.

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20 minutes ago, MunoRN said:

The English is constantly changing and evolving, pronunciations may morph to sound more delicate or firm, new slang words may enter more mainstream use because they are more onomatopoetic, etc.  These are not necessarily right or wrong since these changes serve the purpose of more effectively communicating the thoughts, feelings, or other commonly abstract topics the words are referring to.

The prefixes that define scientific terms however aren't flexible, and whether a hundredth of a meter is a centimeter is correct, a sonometer isn't.  If someone starting calling the number '10' a 'boop' then that is incorrect, not a different view of what 10 is.

Well a portion of this thread is cringe anyway because it was never "sono"-meter that anyone was trying to say, any more than those who say it the other way are saying "senna"-meter.

Some are saying "cent" according to American English, and some are pronouncing it more like the beginning of the word in French, which sounds a bit to us like "sahnt."

Eh, I don't find it anything to get bent out of shape about. After all, when I say croissant, I don't go full-on 'krwah-sahhn'. I also don't go all hooked-on-phonics and say Croy-sAnt. I do what tons of other non-gourmet Americans do and just say some weird combo word: "cruh-sahnt." I'm sure there are many, many other words with which we do something like this....pronouncing part of it according to its original sound...and the other part is whatever we come up with. ?

I'm much more concerned with fenna-gren, myself.

 

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