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The Hindu
4 days ago
- Health
- The Hindu
The Stethoscope and the Pen
Published : Jun 18, 2025 17:39 IST - 6 MINS READ Dear reader, This begins, as most things do in medicine, with a case history. In the late 19th century, one of the most prolific contributors to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) was not a lexicographer or a linguist, but a doctor: Dr William Chester Minor. He was a retired US Army surgeon. He lived in an asylum for the criminally insane after committing a murder in a fit of paranoid delusion. There, amid hallucinations and despair, he sent thousands of entries to the OED's editor, James Murray. The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Love of Words by British writer Simon Winchester tells the story in vivid detail. It is ironic that the English language—especially its modern variant in which you're reading this newsletter—bears the imprint of a doctor who had both healed and harmed. No wonder, then, that so many doctors handle language with surgical precision. And they have produced quite an impressive line-up of literary works that continue to amaze us. Physician-writers have long been among our most haunting chroniclers. Greek physician Hippocrates, known more for his oath than his prose, left behind case notes that can be read like proto-stories: terse, elliptical, full of mystery. During the Islamic Golden Age, Avicenna (Ibn Sina) wrote The Canon of Medicine, but also philosophical treatises that were poetic. Conversely, one of his most popular works has such a curiously Instagram-ish title—The Book of Healing—that reels will be made on it if Gen Z discovers it. In 11th-century Italy, Trotula of Salerno, a female physician, wrote pioneering texts on women's medicine, interspersed with interesting takes that today read as proto-feminist. Jump forward to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and we find a string of European doctor-writers—Chekhov in Russia, deeply attuned to the moral fevers of society; Axel Munthe in Sweden, whose The Story of San Michele mingled ghost story, travelogue, and psychological insight with wry, clinical detachment. 'A man can stand a lot as long as he can stand himself,' Munthe wrote. Doctors, it is said, are like priests. They see men at their worst and at their best, when all pretence is gone. I'd like to believe it is this access to raw, unadorned human experience, life's thresholds and endings, that gives doctors a peculiar vantage point. They witness what most of us only guess at. And when some of them choose to write, their words often possess the kind of authority that only suffering—and the attempt to ease it—can confer. In our times, a bunch of authors embody the archetype elegantly. I'll start with Siddhartha Mukherjee, whose Pulitzer-winning The Emperor of All Maladies made the grim history of cancer into something luminous, almost operatic. Mukherjee, a cell biologist, moves effortlessly from the granular language of genes to the grand arcs of history and myth. His more recent book, The Gene: An Intimate History, is as much about heredity as it is about inheritance, body, trauma, memory, and beyond. Atul Gawande takes a different tack. His writing, especially in Being Mortal, studies not just death, but the systems that fail us as we age. A surgeon with scalpel-sharp prose, Gawande's gift is for laying bare the limits of modern medicine. He focusses on the need to focus on our well-being rather than on our survival. Then there's Abraham Verghese, part physician, part novelist. His writing, be it the sprawling novel Cutting for Stone (2009) or the latest, The Covenant of Water, pulses with a love for language and for the strange, sustaining rituals of medicine. The Kodagu-based Kavery Nambisan is a surgeon whose books, The Hills of Angheri and The Story that Must Not Be Told, eschew romanticism. She writes of rural India, of ethical decay, of dignity in dying. Her writing is political in the best way: not polemical, but attentive to class, caste, and the compromises made by the poor and the principled. One of the most beautiful contributions to this genre is Vikram Paralkar's underrated work The Afflictions, a surreal, Borgesian catalogue of imaginary diseases that reads like a cross between a clinical manual and a dream journal. It reminds us of how thin the line is sometimes between medicine and myth. What is it that we're really reading when we read a doctor's prose? We are reading, perhaps, someone who has seen too much. Someone whose vocabulary must stretch to accommodate grief, whose syntax has absorbed the rhythms of suffering. A line of poetry that comes to mind is from Emily Dickinson—not a doctor, but certainly acquainted with illness: 'After great pain, a formal feeling comes – The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –' I think this is what many physician-writers bring to the table: a language for that 'formal feeling', a lexicon for loss that neither wallows nor looks away. It was only recently—when an intern at Frontline mentioned it to me—that I heard the term 'medical humanities'. For those who haven't heard of it either, medical humanities is what happens when you admit that the body is more than a machine, and healing more than a technical fix. It's a restless, interdisciplinary field that brings together philosophy, literature, ethics, history, art, religion—even theatre and film—with medicine, not to romanticise illness, but to understand it in its full, human context. It asks what pain means, not just how to measure it. It explores the murky, often invisible dimensions of caregiving, suffering, and survival that clinical charts can't capture. In a world where science often speaks in numbers, medical humanities insists on stories. In more than one way, all writing by doctors are solid contributions to this new-found literary spinoff. Medical schools in the US and the UK are now incorporating literature and narrative ethics into their curricula. India, still catching up, might do well to listen. Because illness is never just cellular—it's social, cultural, linguistic. A cancer diagnosis lands differently in a Mumbai slum than in a penthouse in New Delhi. A doctor who can understand that difference—not just treat it, but write it—can rehumanise a field that often feels like it's grinding through bodies at industrial scale. Which brings me, inevitably, to Paul Kalanithi. His When Breath Becomes Air is that rarest of things: a book that breaks you quietly, then leaves you grateful for the shattering. Diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer at the cusp of his career as a neurosurgeon, Kalanithi began writing about his illness with eerie clarity and grace. I once reviewed the book—and carried the weight of it for weeks. 'Even if I'm dying,' he wrote, 'until I actually die, I am still living.' It is one of life's odd and lovely ironies that so many of our most healing stories come not from novelists or poets, but from doctors. As the dictionary-building Dr Minor proved, even in madness and despair, a doctor can give language new life. Which is precisely why Frontline is thrilled to introduce a new column by the brilliant doctor-duo 'Kalpish Ratna' (Kalpana Swaminathan and Ishrat Syed), titled 'Hello, Fingertip' where the surgeons will be looking at how humans can reconnect with their 'sentient selves'. Read it here (it's free!) and let us know your thoughts. Also, write back with your favourite doctor-writers, in any language. Wishing you a healthy week ahead, Jinoy Jose P. Digital Editor, Frontline We hope you've been enjoying our newsletters featuring a selection of articles that we believe will be of interest to a cross-section of our readers. Tell us if you like what you read. And also, what you don't like! Mail us at frontline@
The Star
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
QuickCheck: Is the word 'lah' in the Oxford English Dictionary?
"Lah" is a quintessential expression that adds a Malaysian flavour to conversations. But is it true that it's been added into the Oxford dictionary? IN THE rich tapestry of Malaysian English, the word "lah" stands out as a quintessential expression. It's a word that adds flavour to conversations, conveying emphasis, emotion or even camaraderie. But is it true that "lah" has found its way into the Oxford English Dictionary (OED)? Verdict: TRUE The Oxford English Dictionary has included the word "lah into its lexicon, a significant nod to the uniqueness of Malaysian English. According to the OED, this colloquial particle is used as an interjection to assert or soften a statement, depending on its context and intonation. For instance, "Come on, lah" can convey a friendly urging, while "No need to worry, lah" might offer reassurance. The word's earliest known use in print was in 1956 (though it was definitely in use prior to that) and was first published in the OED in 1997. Alongside "lah," other Malaysian slang have been added to the OED. Most recently, "alamak" was added into the OED in 2025. Also a colloquial interjection, according to the OED "alamak" is used to express surprise, shock, or dismay. This versatile word captures the essence of sudden reactions, whether to unexpected news or minor mishaps. The first known use of the word in print was in 1952. Other words to have made it into the OED as of 2025 include kaya (noun), rendang (noun), ketupat (noun), mat rempit (noun), nasi lemak (noun), otak-otak (noun) and tapau (verb). The recognition of these words in the Oxford English Dictionary celebrates how Malaysian lingo, with its unique expressions and culinary terms, continues to enrich the English language as a whole. So the next time you sprinkle a "lah" into your sentence, know that it's not just a local favourite – it's internationally recognised! References: 1. dictionary/lah_int?tab= meaning_and_use#12813255 2. dictionary/alamak_int?tab= meaning_and_use#1444981330
Global News
08-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Global News
The tortuous process of finding a name for your band
In 2007, a couple of listeners asked me if I would do another Ongoing History of New Music program on the origins of band names. I'd done a few in the past, but I was happy to accommodate. This time, however, I was struck with a question: What do you call the study of the names musical groups choose? In the decades since the birth of rock 'n' roll, someone must have come up with a term. As it turns out, no. The study of word origins is etymology. If you're looking at place names — known as toponyms — then you're into toponomy, toponymics or toponomastics. We get a little closer with the word for the study of personal names, which is onomastics or anthroponymy — unless you're just concerned with surnames, which is patronymics. But, much to my surprise, there was no official term for 'how did a band get their name?' Story continues below advertisement This struck me as a massive oversight in the field of linguistics, so I called up a few academics, who then roped in other language experts, including a branding and marketing guy in California who had coined the terms Swiffer and Blackberry. They returned with a suggestion: bandomynology. Since then, I've been on a mission to see that the word spreads into the common vernacular so that one day, it'll end up in the Oxford English Dictionary. Disappointingly, the OED people still haven't called despite my best efforts, including a column in this space in 2021. The Urban Dictionary, however, has been most kind by adding bandomynology to its list of searchable words. It's again time to put the word out there with a little more bandomynology. Big Wreck: They were known as Still Waters until they had a really bad rehearsal one day, something that one of the members categorized as a 'big wreck.' Blink-182: The most common story is that the group was originally named Blink, but was forced to change it when they were informed that there was already an Irish band by that name. Get breaking National news For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen. Sign up for breaking National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy Why the 182? Unclear. Stories speculating on its origins include the number of times Tony Montana drops the F-bomb in Scarface; the number of the ship that bassist Mark Hoppus' grandfather served on during the Second World War, and the number Mark believes his ideal weight should be (in pounds, of course). The most intriguing is that it's code for a rival high school from guitarist Tom DeLonge's school days. The '18' stands for the letter 'R' (the 18th letter of the alphabet) and the '2' is for 'B' (the second), short for Rancho Bernardo High. This means, according to Tom, that the correct pronunciation of the band's name is 'Blink Eighteen-Two.' Story continues below advertisement The Dead Milkmen: First, don't judge — the name choice is a lot more literary than you might think. There's a character in a Toni Morrison novel called Milkman Dead. Garbage: An insult that backfired. When Butch Vig, Duke Erikson, Steve Marker and Shirley Manson were demoing material for their debut alum in 1993, a 'friend' commented that the material 'sounded like garbage.' That turned out to be perfect because the band was looking for something irreverent. Hoobastank: No one is really certain, although legend says it may have come from a mispronounced German word or just a joke name from high school. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard: This was a compromise. Someone wanted to call this Australian group Gizzard Gizzard, but someone else wanted to honour Jim Morrison, who had the nickname, 'The Lizard King.' So, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard met everyone in the middle. Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark: Easy. They were looking for the most pretentious name possible. It's certainly better than their original choice: Hitler's Underpants. Paracoccidiodomicosisproctitissarcomucosis: A real metal band from Mexico specializing in a particular type of grindcore. This is a combination of various diseases and medical terms. Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs: The English band was originally just Pigs, but they kept adding Pigs as they strived to be obnoxious. Pigs x 7 is an acceptable substitute. Portugal. The Man: This is convoluted. It's the mix of two concepts: A country of many people (like a band), and an individual (a specific person). The period designates the 'many' from the 'one.' Rage Against the Machine: The phrase comes from the title of a song by Inside Out, a pre-Rage band fronted by Zack de la Rocha. Since RATM appeared in 1992, conventional wisdom says that the 'machine' they're raging against is soulless corporations pursuing profit at the expense of humanity. Given Rage's political stance, that makes sense. However, it may refer to the group's persnickety 1979 Chevy van. Zack: 'I can't tell you how many times that van broke down in 1991 when we were starting out and how many gigs we lost because it would quit working. When we finally had enough money to buy a new van to house our equipment, the first thing we all did was take sledgehammers and beat the crap out of the thing.' A stretch? Maybe. Still, it does fit. Story continues below advertisement The The: When Matt Johnson formed the band in the late '70s, 'The' bands were fashionable (The Clash, The Cars, The Ramones, etc.) He simply decided to take the trend to its logical extreme. At one point, The The was practically impossible to Google as the search engine used to ignore definite articles in any search query. Wet Leg: Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chamber found the name by combining random emojis on a keyboard. XAVLEGBMAOFFFASSSSITIMIWOAMNDUTROABCWAPWAEIIPPOHFFFX: No, really. This 'gore grind' band released a debut album in 2016. I can also tell you that this is an acronym that stands for … well, be careful before you click here. You can listen to their work on Spotify, starting with the hit song, Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilivolcanpconosis. And finally, !!!: This Sacramento band was inspired by the lead actor in the 1980 movie, The Gods Must Be Crazy, which followed an Indigenous man on his travels through Southern Africa. He spoke the Jul'hoan language, which uses a series of clicks. In written form, that click is represented in English by an exclamation mark. If you want to say the name out loud, the band prefers 'Chk Chk Chk.' See? Isn't bandomynology fun?
CNET
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CNET
Did Today's Rare Wordle Starting Letter Shatter Your Win Streak? Guess These Letters First
How about that Wordle puzzle on Thursday? The five-letter answer in the New York Times' engaging online word-guessing game probably shattered a few winning streaks, since it begins with the absolute rarest letter in the English language. I never guess that letter except out of total and complete desperation. Personally, I like to stick with starter words that I know feature some of the most frequently used letters. (TRAIN and CLOSE are among my favorites.) Click here for today's Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles. In order to get the absolute best starter words, you should know which letters turn up the most in English. I reached out to the big brains at the Oxford English Dictionary -- you know, the whopping, multi-volume dictionary that no one actually owns, but that your school librarian adored. An OED representative sent me a list in which staff analyzed all of the main entries in the concise version of the dictionary. "It's worth noting that the piece is pretty old," the OED representative said apologetically. "It mentions that the stats are from Concise Oxford English Dictionary in 2004, although current colleagues aren't sure when the piece itself was written, and I'm afraid we don't have any newer analysis of this sort." The list may be 20 years old, but I'm going with it. The alphabet isn't like ice cream flavors or musical acts -- no new, trendy letters have been introduced in that time. So whether you're just getting into Wordle, or you want to shake up your starter words and make sure they're still hitting the most common letters, this list is for you. S begins the most English words The most common letter is no surprise to most people: It's E, and it's immediately followed by another vowel, A. And those letters are much, much more popular than the final two letters in the OED's list, which are J and Q. (Anyone else surprised that J is used less than X and Z?) "The letter E is over 56 times more common than Q in forming individual English words," the OED analysis found. It notes that "there are more English words beginning with the letter S than with any other letter." So Wordle players, bookmark this article, and you might find yourself doing a little better in upcoming games. Here are the letters of the alphabet ranked according to how frequently they showed up in the 2004 Concise Oxford English Dictionary. The most common letters used in English
Telegraph
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Shakespeare wrongly credited for words first used by women, claims Countdown star
William Shakespeare has been wrongly credited with inventing hundreds of words that may have first been used by women, Countdown's Susie Dent has claimed. The Bard is often said to have coined around 1,700 English words, including 'bedazzle', 'puke' and 'assassination'. But speaking on BBC Radio 4's Loose Ends podcast, Ms Dent suggested many of these words were mistakenly attributed to Shakespeare simply because his use of them in plays had been preserved. '[H]e was their mouthpiece,' she said. 'And this is fine. He never claimed to invent these words.' The Countdown co-host and lexicographer said some of Shakespeare 's seemingly novel expressions were probably part of everyday Elizabethan speech, but their true origins were lost because the voices of ordinary people – particularly women – had not been recorded. 'He is a master obviously, as we know, exuberant with language. But I think particularly the voices of women, which weren't recorded in those days, I think a lot of the words were probably absorbed from them as well,' she said, adding: 'He was their spokesperson.' Ms Dent said the phenomenon of misattribution was so widespread that it had earned the nickname 'Fakespeare' among dictionary compilers. The Channel 4 quiz show star said the pattern became clear to her during her time working on the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). 'In the OED, we give the first record of a word that we can find, many of them credited to Shakespeare,' she said. 'But regularly an email will go around saying 'Fakespeare' as the title because we found what we call an 'ante-dating', so an earlier record before Shakespeare.' The phenomenon features in Ms Dent's debut novel, Guilty by Definition, a mystery set at the heart of the fictionalised 'Clarendon English Dictionary', published last month. Ms Dent also told the podcast that the internet was helping dictionary compilers by contributing to the preservation of regional dialects. She said: 'We rely on printed evidence. And that's particularly tricky with dialect, local words, because they're very much part of an oral tradition. They're not really written down. 'But now we are able to transcribe conversations on the street, thanks to the internet, which a lot of people fear when it comes to language. 'But people are swapping memories of the old words that their parents and their grandparents knew. And we have records of them now. So it's brilliant. So we're getting more and more regional vocabulary in there.'
