Re: Inkhorns are a fascinating linguistic phenomenon, ...

On 17/09/24 04:03, Silvano wrote:

I don't know what is Aidan's profession, but medical practitioners
are not the only people who may need to know the equivalent to a
medical expression in another language. There are also those strange
beasts called translators. I am one of them.

My ex-wife's work as a medical interpreter produced a wealth of stories
showing that lots of people understand very little about language.
Here's an example that actually happened. I've probably changed the
actual words, but I've retained the essence of what happened.
A hospital nurse phoned the interpreter service.
"Could you send an interpreter, please? We have a patient who can't
understand English."
"OK. What language?"
"Oh. I thought the interpreters did all languages."
"No, we have different people for different languages."
"Well, I think he speaks African."
That reminds me of an incident in an earlier job of hers, when she
worked in a psychiatric hospital. A small town north of Newcastle had
had no doctor for a long time, but Australia has a policy of getting
immigrant doctors out to rural areas, so they finally got someone. That
doctor sent one of his patients down to the psych hospital for
assessment. The clinical notes said that he was obsessed with attacking
birds.
When interviewed, one of the first things he said was
"Stone the crows, I don't know why they sent me here."
--
Peter Moylan       peter@pmoylan.org    http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW