Pronunciation

Started by Chizwheel
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Chizwheel

Chizwheel

Urology Resident
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Ok, so this is something that has bugged me forever. Why, oh why does almost every attending that I have ever met say "sonometer" instead of "centimeter?" I have heard "sonometer" so often that I actually thought for a while that it was supposed to be pronounced that way. So I looked it up in a dictionary and it is pronounced "sent-i-mee-tuhr" How did this "sonometer" business get started? Do attendings at your school do this too? Does anyone know why this happens...arrrgh!!!:meanie:
 
Bertelman said:
I was disappointed to find they were just using a pretentious pronunciation of a common word.
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Especially since they still spell it "centimeter" (not "centimetre").

Fancy a spot of tea, old chap? 😉
 
I have encountered a nurse anesthetist (male) who would try and pass himself off as an md anesthesiologist, and he would constantly say "sont-i-meter." I couldn't even look him in the eye for fear of bursting out laughing. :laugh:
 
this is too funny! The first few times I heard one attending say it, I actually wondered if maybe it was a different unit of measurement that I just didn't know about.
 
apparently it was some old time way of saying it...I hate when people call it "sont-e-meter"...it's just annoying.
 
You know, I have lived in England and Scotland and not ONE person over there ever said it like that. I mean, didn't this metric stuff come from there ... ???? And they don't even speak like that.

I think people who try and speak like this should just wear a bow tie and weird saddle shoes and call it quits. [No offense intended to otherwise normal people who might like to wear bow ties ... ] 🙂
 
QuinnB said:
apparently it was some old time way of saying it...I hate when people call it "sont-e-meter"...it's just annoying.
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This is a pet peeve of mine, as well. I think I always thought it strange until I sat in on a surgeon's lecture and he went back and forth from sont-e-meter to centimeter. It then became just plain annoying. And what makes it worse is that I am worried that I may have to start pronouncing it that way sometime in the future just because all my attendings do.
 
Ok, here's another one: al-do-STER-one.

Also known as al-DOS-terone. We had some dude teach us endo and he kept saying this. At first I wasn't sure what he was talking about, and I immediately assumed that I was an idiot because here was this endocrine function I had somehow, after several years of premed, research, and now medical school - somehow I had not ever learned about it. 🙄

Of course, the other option was that he was a pretentious prig out to mess with poor tired med students' minds.
 
nala said:
this is too funny! The first few times I heard one attending say it, I actually wondered if maybe it was a different unit of measurement that I just didn't know about.
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I thought the same thing the first time I heard "sontimeter." That pronunciation still bothers me...
 
I think it's mostly older people that use this pronunciation. On my surgery core rotation, my attending who is also the chief of surgery used to say it like this all the time. He's in his late 60's.
 
akkkk. I can't stand it when...people ... pronounce 'dilitation' *DITilation*

Sheesh. if you can't say it right, just say the acronym, GDV. or hell, the layman's term is cool, everyone knows what you're talking about when you say bloated but when you say DITilation...some of the rest of us minions/gnomes are left wondering if we are going to get in a cool new alien baby referal surgery or if we should just prep the OR for the standard GDV schtuff.

*whew* thanks for the opportunity to vent, I needed to get that off my chest.
 
Orthonut said:
Sheesh. if you can't say it right, just say the acronym, GDV. or hell, the layman's term is cool, everyone knows what you're talking about when you say bloated but when you say DITilation...some of the rest of us minions/gnomes are left wondering if we are going to get in a cool new alien baby referal surgery or if we should just prep the OR for the standard GDV schtuff.
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Sorry for the stupid question, but I don't think I know what GDV is. I understand dilation/dilitation whatever the hell people want to call it, but GDV?
 
Heh, most of the people around here say doo-AH-de-nul. We have some foreign surgeons that pronounce everything just a little differently. It doesn't annoy me so much as it makes me giggle a little each time I hear someone say meh-ZEN-tary or parry-EIGHT-al.
 
This thread makes me laugh. This whole "sauna-meter" thing bugs me too. The funny thing is that although we might swear that we will never be this way, there are enough of our colleagues that will begin pronouncing it this way the day they graduate, and so it won't die out. Just think about how many of us have said "when I am an intern/resident/attending, I will never treat my students like crap" yet this is still a prevalent phenomenon in medical education. Some of you may already know students who are looking forward to being interns so that they can beat on their med students. These same students will probably be the next generation of the "sauna-meter" crowd.
 
You know what bugs the hell out of me? Height-th. It is Heigh-T, no H at the end. Why do some people add the 'th?'
 
Bertelman said:
Sorry for the stupid question, but I don't think I know what GDV is. I understand dilation/dilitation whatever the hell people want to call it, but GDV?
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GDV=Gastric Dilitation Volvulus

Translation: stomach and/or spleen and various attachments torsed, may or may not be also dilated. Can be dilated w/o being torsed.
 
heh. I think I'm going to start saying length-th, just as a tribute to you...


"...strong as an ox, and twice as smart!"
 
alright, alright...I knew I had other pet peeves. I HATE the pronunciation um-bil-I-cus. I will never, ever say that. It's just um-BIL-i-cus, just like um-BIl-i-cal cord!
 
Erm, Merriam-Webster's has both listed as acceptable. So 😛 I'll say um-bil-I-cus as much as I damn well please, and you'll like it.
 
Caffeinated said:
This thread makes me laugh. This whole "sauna-meter" thing bugs me too.
OK, this is a common mistake. "Sauna" is actually pronouned "SOW-Nuh", not SAHN-Nuh. SOW-Nuh is a wooden room with a heat source usually covered in rock which is heated to approx 150-180 deg. F. Placing water on the heat source creates steam and a rise in humidity. You may incorrectly hear this referred to as a steam room (steam rooms are much cooler, wetter, and use no direct heat source), and a dry sauna. In fact in many gyms and hotels there are signs barring the placing of water on the stove. This is not a sauna, but simply a hot room made of wood.
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I saw one of those "untold stories of the ER" shows last night, and one of the docs they were interviewing had a guy with a huge gash that opened his "JOO-gyoo-ler" vein. Might be a regional thing, he was southern. But until then I had only ever heard "JUG-ya-ler".
 
kate_g said:
I saw one of those "untold stories of the ER" shows last night, and one of the docs they were interviewing had a guy with a huge gash that opened his "JOO-gyoo-ler" vein. Might be a regional thing, he was southern. But until then I had only ever heard "JUG-ya-ler".
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Was it the Appalachian ER?
 
Pur-pur-RAH or pur-POOR-rah?


I like the former, but an attending kept 'correcting' me towards the latter 😕
 
Orthonut said:
akkkk. I can't stand it when...people ... pronounce 'dilitation' *DITilation*

Sheesh. if you can't say it right, just say the acronym, GDV. or hell, the layman's term is cool, everyone knows what you're talking about when you say bloated but when you say DITilation...
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Huh? Is this a regional pronounciation/spelling? I've never heard of it.

I've heard dilitation and dilation but never ditilation. Does it rhyme with titillate?
 
Kimberli Cox said:
Huh? Is this a regional pronounciation/spelling? I've never heard of it.

I've heard dilitation and dilation but never ditilation. Does it rhyme with titillate?
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pretty much. I mean, I have dyslexia, so sometimes I mess words up, and I don't have "left and right" sides (i have "this and that" sides) but...I mean, I don't add letters where they don't belong when speaking (or writing in the med record)

ditillation. kind of word that belongs in a whorehouse.
 
IbnSina said:
ay-POP-tosis vs Ah-puh-tosis
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I used to say the first one but have now switched to the latter.
I see it as a combination of apo + ptosis (pronounced as you would say ptosis when referring to droopy eyelid)

Plus all the nerdy micro/immuno people I know say A-puh-tosis 😎
 
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