AWADmail Issue 294
Feb 17, 2008
A Compendium of Feedback on the Words in A.Word.A.Day
and Other Interesting Tidbits about Words and Languages
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From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: Interesting stories from the net
Inside Animal Minds:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/03/animal-minds/virginia-morell-text
Learning A New Language From a Native Speaker, Without Leaving Home:
http://nytimes.com/2008/02/17/business/17novel.html
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From: Albert Boosman (aboosman und-alum.org)
Subject: A.Word.A.Day--idiopathy
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/awad/idiopathy.html
The adjective form of today's word is more often seen, as in "idiopathic
Parkinson's Disease". (A medical school joke defines idiopathic as meaning
the doctor is an idiot and the patient is pathetic.)
I've long been amused by the medical community's inventive use of words to
hide its etiological ignorance. Another term which means "We haven't got
a clue" is essential, as in "essential hypertension". As if one couldn't
live without it!
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From: Sunita Kripalani (sunitakripalani hotmail.com)
Subject: idiopathy
I'm not a doctor but I know this word so well. I am a known case of ITP
'Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura' (having a very low platelet count)
since childhood, and I remember one of my haemotologists explain:
"Purpura is of two types: Idiopathic and Non-idiopathic. Cause unknown
and cause known." I used to wonder why it wasn't vice versa.
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From: Barbara Entlova (galanin22 aol.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--idiopathy
More than a thousand years ago, in his quest for understanding of the human
body, Galen proved that the urine was formed in the kidney, not in the
bladder as had been previously thought. Though the Roman Empire is now
little more than a setting for a Hollywood movie, we face the same
fundamental question with which Galen struggled: What is the etiology of
the disease I am observing?
As a medical student currently immersed in the fascinating world of the human
mind, as analyzed by the behavioral sciences, I am acutely aware of the limit
of our understanding of even the most common malady: major depression. Where
Hippocrates would attribute it to the imbalance of our bodily humours, and
Freud would aver that it is caused by guilt and self-criticism, and
Shakespeare would unequivocally associate it with life's events -- love,
loss, and despair -- today's medicine focuses on the biochemical basis of the
disease. Still, we are left with the same fundamental question: What is the
cause of this disease? Perhaps this is one of those times when we must not
dwell on the unknown and instead follow Voltaire's insouciant view: the art
of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
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From: Steven Stine (scstine comcast.net)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--nosocomial
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/nosocomial.html
It is bad enough to acquire a illness while hospitalized. It is even worse
to have a health care facility or worker CAUSE the problem. The word for
such a condition is iartogenic: http://www.iatrogenic.org/define.html
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From: Owen Roberts (oroberts hotmail.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--sequela
Not to split infinitives. That is my definition of success. ;-)
> To freely bloom - that is my definition of success. -Gerry Spence, lawyer
> (b. 1929)
............................................................................
A word after a word after a word is power. -Margaret Atwood, poet and
novelist (b. 1939)
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