"Saunameters"

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Where does this pronunciation come from? The only people I have ever heard use it are older nurses. Please explain. Someone tell me you know what I'm talking about, at least.

Specializes in Oncology.
The French came up with the metric system, which is supposedly why some use the french pronunciation of part of the word and call it a "SAWN-timiter", although I'm not sure why the French accent is only applied to the "cent" portion since the whole word comes from the French, if you're going to use the French pronunciation then it should be SAWN-ti-mett-truh.

I would find it less annoying if people who used this term at least fully committed to this practice. "Cents" as in "a quarter is 50 cents" has the exact same origin, so why don't people say "I have 50 sawnts"?

A quarter is 50 cents? I have much more money than I thought.

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Sonometers measure sound, not electricity.

A quarter is 25 cents :)

While cents and centimeters both use the "hundred" base, they don't have to be pronounced the same.

The French were the ones who derived what we use as the metric system (the French revolution was a time of great rationality, they thought. Well, except for all the executions) from a previously-conceived decimal system of weights and measures, so they got to name its parts. The definitive 1-kg weight and the 1-meter measure still reside in France.

There are a lot of words in English that are derived from two languages, and a huge number in medicine. This accounts for the differences in pronunciation between the parts. Also, there are differences in British and American English. The Brits say "sonti-meter," maybe because they are closer geographically to France and more people know more French as a result. They also refer to "grammes," (French) not "grams."

They also say "GAH-razjh," and we say, "gah-RAZJH" or "gah-RADGE," another French word.

Dilatation is a process, dilation is the result. Often conflated.

I love language. I could go on like this forever.

(No! No! I hear you cry. OK.) :)

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Specializes in Critical Care.
A quarter is 50 cents? I have much more money than I thought.

Touche

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Specializes in Critical Care.
Sonometers measure sound, not electricity.

A quarter is 25 cents :)

While cents and centimeters both use the "hundred" base, they don't have to be pronounced the same.

The French were the ones who derived what we use as the metric system (the French revolution was a time of great rationality, they thought. Well, except for all the executions) from a previously-conceived decimal system of weights and measures, so they got to name its parts. The definitive 1-kg weight and the 1-meter measure still reside in France.

There are a lot of words in English that are derived from two languages, and a huge number in medicine. This accounts for the differences in pronunciation between the parts. Also, there are differences in British and American English. The Brits say "sonti-meter," maybe because they are closer geographically to France and more people know more French as a result. They also refer to "grammes," (French) not "grams."

They also say "GAH-razjh," and we say, "gah-RAZJH" or "gah-RADGE," another French word.

Dilatation is a process, dilation is the result. Often conflated.

I love language. I could go on like this forever.

(No! No! I hear you cry. OK.) :)

The claim that the brits say sontimeters as a general rule appears to be a myth as far as I can tell.

While the UK is near France, I'm not aware that French accents are are typically found in native british speakers.

Grams is still pronounces "Grams" in Britain.

I'm still hoping for an explanation of why it makes sense to say sontimeter, but not sontipede, sontury (100 years), or 10 sonts.

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Specializes in Anesthesia, ICU, PCU.
Nice. These people who you are ******* and moaning about who say "sahn-ti-meters"...are they bad coworkers? If they do their jobs are good to work with, what's the big deal? For all you know, you may do/say something that annoys them. If you look up the word in the dictionary (at least in mine--Merriam-Webster), there are two approved pronunciations. Contrary to popular belief, the derivation of this word is British, not French. Every time this discussion comes up, which is a lot, the conversation frequently turns to French-bashing. I say "sahn-ti-meter." I don't remember saying it any differently. I'm not trying to sound sophisticated, and I'm not a tool. [/quote']

Let me guess you like eating pe-CAHNS instead of PE-cans too?

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Specializes in Oncology, Rehab, Public Health, Med Surg.
Let me guess you like eating pe-CAHNS instead of PE-cans too?

I do, particularly in pe-cahn pie

However, I see no relevance to your comment in reply to OCNRN's well-made points

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Specializes in orthopedic/trauma, Informatics, diabetes.

how about umbu-like-us instead of um-bilick-us.

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Nice. These people who you are ******* and moaning about who say "sahn-ti-meters"...are they bad coworkers? If they do their jobs, are good to work with, what's the big deal? For all you know, you may do/say something that annoys them. If you look up the word in the dictionary (at least in mine--Merriam-Webster), there are two approved pronunciations. Contrary to popular belief, the derivation of this word is British, not French. Every time this discussion comes up, which is a lot, the conversation frequently turns to French-bashing.

I say "sahn-ti-meter." I don't remember saying it any differently. I'm not trying to sound sophisticated, and I'm not a tool.

Yeah, some people in this country need very little provacation to start in on the French-bashing, no?

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The claim that the brits say sontimeters as a general rule appears to be a myth as far as I can tell.

While the UK is near France, I'm not aware that French accents are are typically found in native british speakers.

Grams is still pronounces "Grams" in Britain.

I'm still hoping for an explanation of why it makes sense to say sontimeter, but not sontipede, sontury (100 years), or 10 sonts.

I think she meant they (in the UK) spell it 'gramme' a la francais, rather than 'gram' as we do here in the US. Both spellings are prounounced the same.

Many spelling differences between UK English and USA English stem from greater French-inluence on the part of the UK-version. Colour vs color. Theatre vs theater. Centre vs center.

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Funny, I started a thread on this same subject when I first joined the forum. At first I noticed that only the more advanced practice nurses mispronounced centimeters. I took it as a way of sounding more highly educated than the rest of us, it has always irritated me. I asked my mother, who has her doctorate in nursing, if she also mispronounced centimeters, she did until I corrected her. When I asked her why she pronounced it the way she did, she didn't know, only that it was how her peers pronounced it and she just picked it up.

I think nursing has a bit of an identity crises and at some point some nurses just picked it up and stuck with it, consciously or not, because it made them sound smarter.

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I have only seen/heard of it used in the length of suction catheters, central lines, and epidural catheters. Still used, and still taught. It was taught all through my orientation and I'm only 2.5 years "old" as a nurse.

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Specializes in ED, School Nurse.

The only time I have heard it pronounced that way is when one is referring to the level of suction in a chest tube system. I thought it was something specific to chest tubes when I was a new nurse so I said it the "fancy" way back then. Now, I just say cent-i-meters.

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