• Sterile_Technique@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      This is medicine in a nutshell too. And not just abbreviations, but acronyms… for words in a language that no one uses. I hate it.

      • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        51·
        1 year ago

        I literally took Latin in college for the sole reason that Latin is used in super stupid ways, and my science communication degree would be worth less without that knowledge. Because Latin-base is fully half of the science terms you need to know.

        And my college was super on board with my reasoning. Wish I’d also had the mental capacity for ancient Greek, because that’s literally the other half of naming schemes.

        Ridiculous.

        I’m super into modern scientists giving shit pop culture names. Because holy shit is it ever more memorable than some random Latin/greek bullshit.

        • oo1@lemmings.worldEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Strange that ‘classics’ are taught mostly in the poshest schools. It’s rare for elites to want to preserve any power they have and make it inaccessible to oiks. /s

        • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          1 year ago

          Couple common ones… there are hundreds of these.

          Acronym - Full Latin - English

          PRN - pro re nata - as needed

          NPO - nil per os - nothing my mouth

          AC - ante cibum - before eating

          OD - oculus dexter - right eye

          OS - oculus sinister - left eye

          Q8H - quaque octava hora - every 8 hours

      • Holyhandgrenade@lemmy.world
        11·
        1 year ago

        Well, what other language should be used? Latin is the language of science because there’s no way we’d ever agree on which alive language to use.

  • thefartographer@lemm.ee
    21·
    1 year ago

    Everyone knows that iron, like all abbreviated four-letter nouns gets abbreviated as the first three letters.

    Iro
    Jun
    Fuc

    See? Easy peasy

    • KeriKitty (They(/It))@pawb.socialEnglish
      4·
      1 year ago

      Iroh, Junk, Fuc… uhhhh… Fucu fish? Fucy, a name like “Lucy” but absolute garbtrash?

      … Yeah okay that one’s just “Fuck.” But let’s talk about Iroh anyway! He’s way cool.

  • AbsentBird@lemm.eeEnglish
    10·
    1 year ago

    People will hate on this, but what other breakfast cereal contains dental X-rays in every crunch?

  • spujb@lemmy.cafeEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    Yeah, my good buddy is from Genovia, where they use a regional version of the periodic table with more human-friendly names. They use Ca for calcium, Ir for iron, Hy for hydrogen, and Ox for oxygen. This change was their answer to the metric system—a way to make science more accessible to everyone ostensibly I believe.

    Back in the 1960s, Gennovia was looking to bolster its local industry and economy. The government decided that simplifying scientific terms would help more people get into science and technology fields. It seems to be working because their literacy rates in science are through the roof? Somehow. They even have Ni for nickel and Si for silver, making it so much easier to remember what’s what. I didn’t know it was prevalent enough that it made its way onto package branding tho. Interesting stuff.