Many celebrities, including Olympic athletes, such as US swimmer Michael Phelps, and actors, such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Aniston, are fashionably subjecting themselves to cupping. So, is “the silliest celebrity health fad ever” effective for treating anything? Well, despite all the attendant gobbledegook, or more likely reflected by it, the answer is clear: no. Today […]
Category: Jeff Aronson’s Words
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Narcissism
In Metamorphoses Ovid tells us about Echo and Narcissus. He seems to have invented the tale, although the legends from which he weaves it were already parts of Greek mythology. The story starts with a dispute between Jupiter, king of the gods, and his wife Juno. Jupiter claims that women get more pleasure from sex […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . “The pharmaceutical industry”—the definite article
A colleague recently asked me to point him to “an authoritative definition of ‘pharmaceutical industry’.” The term is one that few have tried to define, perhaps thinking that there is no need. I have searched the many books on my shelves that deal with the iniquities of drug companies, and the few that praise them […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Nutraceuticals and functional foods
Deborah Cohen recently reported in The BMJ that George Freeman, the UK sciences minister, whose responsibilities include the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), wrote to the EU’s research, science, and innovation commissioner, Carlos Moedas, last year urging him to “tackle the increasingly precautionary […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . A ban to abandon
Recently, Trish Groves reported in The BMJ that some conference organisers would like to ban the use of Twitter and other social media at conferences. The main concern seems to be the transmission of pictures of speakers’ slides, which may contain otherwise unpublished data. I say “otherwise” because many do not seem to realise that […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Re: “-er” or “-re”
Anglo-Saxon spelling was consistent, but when Old English and French collided after the Norman conquest of England in 1066, inconsistencies in English spelling arose that lasted until the printing press and dictionaries gradually forced greater regularity, if not always rationality. Samuel Johnson, in his influential dictionary of 1755, preferred the etymologically incorrect variant -our for […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . A memorandum about referendums
So, we now know the results of the referendum, and the government will have to decide how to proceed to the next stage of negotiations. I am talking, of course, not about 52:48 but about 58:42—in other words, the referendum on the junior hospital doctors’ contract. To understand the word “referendum” requires an understanding of […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . More medical patronymics
Last week I discussed the various forms of patronymics that are formed by adding prefixes or suffixes meaning “son/child of,” concentrating on UK varieties. Now I go further afield. The suffix -son is common in English speaking, Scandinavian, and Teutonic countries, spelt –søn and -sen in Denmark, Norway, and the Netherlands, and -sohn in Germany. […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Medical patronymics
Of the different types of surname origins, patronymics are the most common. A patronym or patronymic (Greek πατήρ father + ὀνομα name) is a name that derives from the first name of your father, or more generally from that of a forebear. Originally, people’s names took the forms that we see in the Bible, like […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Leave or remain
Among all the misleading statements and frank untruths with which we’ve been bombarded by both sides in the debate on the forthcoming referendum, one form of argument has not, as far as I can tell, been mentioned—the etymological one. As followers of this blog know, the English judge Sir William Jones observed, in 1786, that […]