Dr. Slang
Sunday, June 1st, 2008 | tags: English evolution, insult |The BBC reports that ‘Dr.’s slang is a dying art’. Evidently, Dr.’s slang was a creative way of insulting their patients and each other. I do like a good insult, its the basis for bringing entertainment into otherwise dull parliamentary debate. Aparantly Dr.s used ‘acronyms designed to spell out the unsayable truth about their patients’. Why unsayable? Doctors should have a skill for being concise, frank, honest. The exmaples provided in the article may be ‘creative’ but they are also based on stereotypes many of which may be prejudicial and lead to inappropriate treatment decisions. Cited exceptions to prejudicial stereotyping included TTR (Tea Time Review), PFO (Patient Fell Over) PGT (Patient Got Thumped). These all seem fair game for saying out loud or acronyms. But instead of saying or writing NFN (Normal for Norfolk), why not list the actual behaviours that lead to the application of that prejudice, for example, ‘Observed Talking To Treestump’ (OT3).
If the slang perpetuates prejudices then it (not patients) should die.
