On zederisms

A recent comment confused me. As usual.

Bruce Hamjangles accused me of promulgating zederisms.  Despite googling the word, I had no idea what a zederism was.  Turns out it's a neologism for spelling words with a 'z' (pronounced 'zed') that would be normally spelled with an 's' in standard Australian English.

Guilty as charged.

But before you pass sentence, hear this.  I only did it because blogger.com insists that 's' is wrong and puts a little red squiggle under the word.  A little red squiggle which I find so annoying that it's psychologically less damaging for me to just cave in and use American English's 'z' (pronounced 'zee').

Bruce Hamjangles also used the word "ġeār-dagum" which I am unable to shed any light on at this stage of my existence.  Do not doubt, however, that I am devoting myriad resources to decoding this apparent keyboard face-plant.

Out.

Once again, German has an unexpectedly apt word for what you have just experienced

Blutschlauchüberraschung (n.) - A feeling of wonder, as that elicited when emptying your pockets upon arriving home after an evening at work only to unexpectedly find a tube of blood, unlabelled, whose origin you do not recall.

German is an incredibly versatile language

Manfraurektumverwirrung (n.) - The disorientation felt by the medical examiner during a rectal exam when they realize that the man's rectum feels much more like a woman's rectum because the man has had a total prostatectomy so there is no anterior firmness, so for a brief moment the doctor is concerned that they have made a terrible mistake and is fact examining the wrong patient.

There's a word in German for that too

Stauchenhefeextrakttraummüdigkeit (n.) - The overwhelming exhaustion experienced after you see a TV news bulletin saying your sister-in-law died from eating expired Vegemite only hours after winning a Commonwealth Games gold medal in freestyle swimming, and you call your brother in great distress only to be informed that it is all an elaborate hoax masterminded by Roy Slaven and HG Nelson, and you can barely cope with the roller-coaster ride of emotion when you suddenly wake up and it was all a dream and you're already late for work.

Polysyllabic

Hatchling

Dadda, "eight" rhymes with "great"!

PTR

And "date".

Hatchling

And "gate"

PTR

And "ablate".

Hatchling

And "rescuscitate".

PTR

!!!

There's a word for it in German

Zehennagelschnurrbartangst (n.) - The experience of, having hours earlier extracted an infected ingrown toenail from a patient, smelling the pus again, and worrying that perhaps some of it has squirted up onto your moustache without your knowledge.

Suburban dictionary

Matticus Finch recently left a wonderful list of words for me to use in future requests for radiography. Unfortunately I didn't know what most of the words meant. And if I, the Elderly Boy Genius, am flummoxed and bamboozled, what hope is there for you Readers, the mere dross of humanity?

To assist you, to educate you, to lift you up from the gutter, I have prepared some definitions of those words. I urge you, nay - instruct you - to use them every day until they enter common parlance in your everyday milieu, or somebody punches you in the face. Either way, mankind will be better off.

Avaunt - A jaunty cry given when vaulting over a privet hedge, garden setting, or pile of croquet mallets. "With a lusty avaunt, he disappeared over the gunwhales and was not seen again."

Anon - A infeasibly small quantity of an exotic ingredient required to make a particular recipe, which is only obtainable in amounts large enough to make several thousand serves. "Then, add 2 anons of strawberry seeds."

Ordure - An instruction that is especially burdensome to fulfill. "He ordured me to clean every toilet on the ward."

Eftsoons - The easterly tropical storms seldom seen these days in Adelaide. "We re-planted the garden in anticipation of a good eftsoon drenching, but everything just dried up and died."

Marmoreal - Of, or pertaining to, the marmot, which may or may not be a type of groundhog. "Your new haircut is somewhat marmoreal."

Thole - (derogatory) the anus. "Get back to work or I'll kick you in your thole."

Betimes - Indicative of an indeterminate length of time that has expired since one began playing the one-armed bandits. "I've wet my pants and there's a new Prime Minister betimes."

Somatic - Partially automated. "My car won't go into fourth gear so it's somatic at best."

Betwixt - The loneliness felt when eating an entire chocolate bar whose key advertising feature is the ability to be easily broken and shared between friends. "I hurriedly gobbled the whole thing up then sat there in front of the vending machine feeling betwixt for the next half hour."

Evisceration - The act of forcibly removing someone from their place of residence. "If full restitution for unpaid rent is not made by the first of next month, evisceration proceedings will commence."

Forsooth - A dental abscess. "I han't hum in do work doday coth I hab a forsooth."

Howbeit - Grammatical term for the long compound words in languages such as German. "Did you hear about Jeff? He dislocated his jaw on a particularly nasty howbeit!"

Gamut

A sudden flashback to the recent Olympics - a FaceBook friend posts a comment there about the opening ceremony - that he had "experienced the full gamete of emotions".

And I laughed, thinking that if your gametes got involved, you obviously enjoyed it far more than I did.

Bohemian rhapsody

People often ask me why I decided to study medicine.  I usually lie to them and tell them that I wanted to help the helpless, bring hap to the hapless, and so on, especially if it's an interview panel or they are dressed like the Three Amigos.  But the truth is that I did it because I really like funny names.

Medicine is chock full of conditions, diseases, syndromes, body parts, microbes, and devices that have been named after people.  The number of things is so vast that all of the Bakers, Browns and Smiths got in early, meaning that the field is wide open for people with unusual and sometimes amusing names to be enshrined for all posterity.

So it helps me while away the hours thinking about how Reiter's syndrome is different to writer's block, or why Kawasaki disease has nothing to do with motorcycles, or how Wohlfart-Kugelberg-Welander disease has the word "fart" in the middle of it.  Snigger.  This is PTR's First Law Of Comedy: funny names are funny.

The problem comes though when you find out that the condition that you're laughing at the name of is serious, horrible, and generally dire for all concerned.  This is PTR's Second Law Of Comedy which contravenes the First Law: dead people aren't funny.

Fortunately, I have recently discovered PTR's Third Law Of Comedy, which contravenes the Second Law: dead people are funny if they happen to have been officers in the Prussian army during the 1866 campaign against Austria in Bohemia.

As evidence, may I present Exhibit A:

• Verdy du Vernois
• von Wartenleben
• Schlotheim
• von Tumpling
• Finck von Finckenstein
• Prince Kraft zu Hohenlohe Ingelfingen

These names are fantastic, and in fact I feel a bit disappointed that they chose the military life rather than the medical.  Just imagine finding out that you've ruptured your Ligament of Ingelfingen, or that your doctor was about to slot home the Schlotheim speculum.  Now that would be worth the pain.

Physiological

The anaesthetist that I was hanging around with last week was fond of using the word "physiological" to indicate approval, in the sense that the thing being approved was in some sense gentle on the patient.  For example, when we were discussing intravenous fluids, she said that she liked Hartmann's because it was "more physiological".  Later on when the patient's hand had to be immobilised and the theatre nurse popped a roll of Softban bandage into the palm before wrapping the hand up, she noted that the curvature of the wrist was "very nice and physiological".

I think that I'll start using the word "physiological" in the sense of general approval:

• "I like your new skirt, it's very physiological."
• "Stephen Fry's quiz show is so physiological."
• "Dude, you were ripping those breaks out there today, that new twinfin is physiological."

My prediction is that this is really going to catch on and be the next big net meme.

Certain words

One of my favourite words at the moment is "certain".  Not in the sense of "sure", but in the sense of "particular".  I like it because using the word "certain" can change the whole flavour of your sentence, creating an illusionary air of informativeness whilst actually contributing nothing specific that can come back to hurt you.
Here's an example - consider this sentence:

"Whilst reversing out of my driveway I sideswiped my neighbours' cars."

And now consider it rewritten slightly to include the word "certain":

"Whilst reversing out of my driveway I sideswiped certain neighbours' cars."

In one fell swoop I have gone from being a klutzy driver to a malevolent vandal.  The word "certain" has transformed the event from accident to incident.

And think about this one:

"During attempts at resuscitation by emergency department staff, the patient expired."

Which then becomes:

"During attempts at resuscitation by certain emergency department staff, the patient expired."

Or even this:

"During certain attempts at resuscitation by emergency department staff, the patient expired."

The first is a statement of fact, the second is an insinuation of incompetence, the third makes you wonder if they were using smoked kippers and AAA batteries to try to revive the poor guy.

So here's my tip of the day.  Try slipping the word "certain" into otherwise innocuous sentences and see what happens.  Even if it all blows up in your face you can just claim that certain people took your remarks out of context.

Wants

My holiday in the Philippines was a great success.

One of my favourite parts of each day is when my Word Of The Day email arrives.  Each one has a feature word, the origin of the word, other words from that same origin, one or two examples, and, tucked away down the bottom of the message, an unrelated quote.  The quote is actually the best bit, in my humble opinion.  The feature words are often too obscure to be of use in daily life, although from time to time I do work them into a blob.

Today's quote was interesting:

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness. - Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)

Now "Plastic" Bertrand is a smart guy.  Nobel prize, philosophy, books, mathematics, and he was a dab hand at the old "pull my finger" joke too.  But in this case, he's talking bunkum.  The list of things that I want is short but I can guarantee you that if you generous readers would pool your resources and get them for me, I'd be happy as a clam.

So if any of you have the following things just lying around, please send them to me.

• Mazda MX5 hardtop.
• Twelve or so 25/28mm Persian cataphracts.
• A CD unscratcher.
• A barbecue.
• A fringed buckskin jacket like the one in that film with Jon Voigt that I haven't seen yet.
• A card marked "Get out of jail free (also good for exams)".
• A banjo and the inclination to practise.

Chip in now and put a smile on my dial.

Morning coughy

You know how sometimes you get a tune or an unusual word stuck in your head?  That happened to me yesterday.  It's much worse for me when I'm tired and yesterday I was stonkered.  I'd gotten up really earlier, before 6 a.m. which, contrary to my previous experience of the world, actually exists.  And get this: that early in the morning the sun isn't even up yet.  It's like night!

So I was really tired to start with, then I just got more tired because I think I got a bit dehydrated.  Drinking coffee rather than water doesn't do much to wake you up after the first couple of cups, and it makes you pee like a racehorse.  And to cap it all off I ended up spending too much time wandering around outside in the cold and popping in and out of nice warm shops in town, which is also tiring.

I managed to avoid getting anything too preposterous stuck in my head until we went to get something to eat at the markets and I saw my supervisor across the way and the word "dextropropoxyphene" popped into my head.  I think this happened because the last time we spoke, a couple of weeks ago, he made some strange remark to me about how I was probably hooked on it when I was a kid and that's why I liked the taste of cough syrup.  Sure.  Nothing at all to do with the fact that the cough syrup was 95% sugar.

Anyway, having a word keep whizzing round inside your head is annoying at the best of times, but when it's dextropropoxyphene it's doubly annoying because I can barely pronounce it.  I'm pretty sure that I don't even know what it is, which would make it a Rumsfeldian known unknown.  No wonder the war in Iraq went so badly.  The insurgents probably had bottles and bottles of dextropropoxyphene and they weren't afraid to use it!