Words You Hate

[OyWithThePoodles]

Is there a medical word that you absolutely hate? Or one that you can never seem to pronounce correctly?

Hate:

• Meatus. (Eww)
• Gargle.

Mispronounce:

Prophylaxis. I ALWAYS say prophylaxicks.

I have a co-worker that says Cefazolin wrong and is convinced she is right. Drives me nuts.

[Farawyn]

You can't really worry about colloquial speech. Speech is constantly changing, because it's essentially arbitrary anyway. Since the beginning of language it's been evolving through use. Your use of language probably appalled someone of an older generation, and that person's use of language probably appalled someone before them... All the way back to the first human utterances.

700 years ago the way we pronounced vowels changed essentially overnight (250 years), called the Great Vowel Shift. You would not have been able to talk to Chaucer (you could have passed notes, though, since he spoke English). Shakespeare would have to speak slowly for you to understand him. Abe Lincoln would think we all sound like idiots.

Which isn't to say we shouldn't know what's proper currently, and use it when appropriate. I just mean that worrying about how people are changing language is sort of like self-flagellation, it only hurts you.

(this random post was brought to you by the letters a, e, i, o, and u.)

Why not y?

Sometimes?

[Davey Do]

I second moist.

And, smegma

Mmmmm! "Smegma"!

[BeckyESRN]

And your senior team agreed to the use of "juicy cough" in the documentation? Very odd.

I'm a school nurse, we have no senior management team. One of the other nurses in my district loves this term.

[twozer0, NP]

Another non nursing one: Humpday

And while were at it, Geico commercials in general!

[INN_777, BSN, RN]

Melena. Urgh!

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

"Just a little pinch" NOT! My veins roll away and are deep, & those sticks hurt like crazy especially when an inexperienced Phlebotomist stabs me with those needles.

[BeckyESRN]

FranEMTnurse said:

"Just a little pinch" NOT! My veins roll away and are deep, & those sticks hurt like crazy especially when an inexperienced Phlebotomist stabs me with those needles.

Ugh! I hate "just a pinch". I especially hate it when the nurse tells my kid "it will just be a little pinch." I usually say "No, this is going to hurt, but it's over quickly." Please don't lie. If it hurts less than they expect, we can all be pleasantly surprised.

"My mom said to go to the nurse when I got to school" and of the same vein "My mom said she'll come get me"

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

I usually say "No, this is going to hurt, but it's over quickly."

I usually tell them that it's a stab that usually hurts me a lot unless I get an experienced person.

[Sith Lady Oma]

Moisturization 

[OlivetheRN, ADN, BSN, RN]

brownbook said:

Pulmonary toilet. I don't know if anybody uses it? I think I last heard it in maybe nursing school?

One of our anestheiologists used that recently and I looked at her blankly for a second before my brain reengaged 

[luvlnd03]

secretions

meconium

leakage

[RNfaster]

I hate nare (incorrect singular of nares --correct version: naris).