Although I found only one onomatopoeic word (iesca, a sob, hiccup, or belch), among early medical words in the Old English dictionary called the Epinal glossary, another, throtbolla (throat-boll, the Adam’s apple), of which more next time, was a translation of an onomatopoeic Latin word, gurgulio. The Indo-European root GARG was an echoic representation of […]
Category: Columnists
The BMJ Today: Doing the right thing, doing the wrong thing, and the Hawthorne effect
• Samir Dawlatly explains in a blog the barriers that he faces daily as a practicing GP, which often hinder him from providing high quality healthcare. He gives the example of a patient presenting with tiredness and says that, under pressure, it is much more difficult and time consuming to explain why blood tests aimed at […]
Richard Smith: Disciplined for being human
“Doctors need to bring something of themselves to their patients, to make a personal connection, if medicine is to be a healing science,” writes an anonymous obituarist, somewhat portentously, at the end of an obituary of Oliver Sacks. But if you’re a nurse you might be disciplined for such a human healing action. […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Medical onomatopoeia
Seeking early medical words in the Old English dictionary known as the Epinal glossary, I was not surprised to find that one of the dozen examples I unearthed was onomatopoeic: iesca (yesk or yex, a sob, a hiccup, or the hiccups). Perhaps I should have been surprised that there weren’t more; after all, some early […]
Richard Smith: The NHS needs existential psychotherapists
Existential psychotherapists help people with the existential, eternal, unsettling, and human problems of meaninglessness, isolation, and the terror of death. These are problems that are causing much suffering in Britain and yet do not respond to the drugs that are the standby of the NHS. That’s why the NHS needs existential psychotherapists. It may have […]
Billy Boland: Playing the long game
I was struck by a pang of existential angst the other day when I was out for dinner with some consultant friends. They were chatting about their impending retirement and their hopes for life after the NHS. I got to jape that it was alright for them, some of us would still be working for […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . The first medical word
In an earlier blog I noted the impossibility of knowing which words came first, language having evolved thousands of years before written records, although claims have been made for the longevity of words such as I, we, and thou; this and that; who and what. One can, however, discover the earliest known recorded words in […]
William Cayley: Comfort always and advocacy for the vulnerable
Reading the Monday morning paper, I was greeted by stories about ongoing fights over whether or how to undo the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) and controversies over solitary confinement. Later, while driving to work, I heard more news on the challenges facing those in eastern Europe who are confronted by a rising influx of immigrants. One final check […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Ars magna
In 1545 Girolamo Cardano, an Italian physician, mathematician, and philosopher, published a book, Ars magna, or the Rules of Algebra (picture), which included the solutions to cubic and quartic equations, for which Cardano is perhaps best known today. Rearranging the letters of “ars magna” yields “anagrams”, another 16th century phenomenon, in English at least—the first […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Backronyms
A backronym is not an acronym written backwards but one that is formed retrospectively. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) gives two definitions: 1. An acronym formed from a phrase whose initial letters spell out a particular word or words, chosen to enhance memorability. 2. A contrived explanation of an existing word’s origin, positing it as […]