Alright. Here’s the thing. I went to the doctor’s this morning for a routine blood test – I have an underactive thyroid and they do regular checks to make sure my supplementary hormone is at the right level, which is fine by me, since I neither want to put on huge amounts of weight or go into terminal overdrive and die of a heart attack.
At exactly the time on my appointment slip, I was called into the nurse’s room. Yay!
I sat down, she made the usual polite conversation while she was getting things ready, and then she put that strangle-your-biceps thing on and picked up the syringe and she said:
‘Just a little scratch … !’
Just a little what?? You know, they always say that these days, and I started to wonder why. I mean, it isn’t a scratch, she’s about to poke a hole in me with a sharp instrument, viz, one needle. Scratches just glance across the surface. There’s no way you’d get a syringe full of blood from one, and that being her aim, she was definitely going to make a hole right through one of my veins. That is not a scratch!
You know what I think? I think it’s another example of a Worlde Gonne Madde! I mean, of course, political correctness.
What nurses used to say, and what they seem reluctant to say these days is:
‘Just a little prick … !’
I’m guessing that she wants to avoid -
a) sniggers and smart-arse retorts from both sexes,
b) threats of compensation suits from insecure men with small appendages and hurt feelings, and
c) offers to prove she’s wrong from men at the other end of the dangly bit spectrum.
But, for goodness’ sake! How many more perfectly good and useful words are we going to allow to be quietly shuffled into the Lexicon of Unacceptable Words? What next? Are we going to have to come up with a different word for a ball?
Or maybe that would only be a problem when there’s more than one of them!
Oh, I still hear “just a little prick” here. Except at the dentist. He says, “Just a little pinch.”
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LOL – and it’s not a ‘pinch’ either, is it?
Oh, I hate those injections at the dentist…
Ha ha! I always played with two balls – up against a wall ha ha ha!
Babs – beetles last blog post..How embarrassingly stupid!
LOL – it isn’t just our language, darlin’. As I learned when I was a teenager working in a fast food establishment in Texas, the word “juevos” (or eggs) is slang for …well…balls. I caught on the first time the Venezuelan girls started snickering with the Mexican girls when I said that some juevos rancheros would be good for breakfast. HA! Reminds me of Jennifer H with her cowboy fantasies!
Peace – D
Babs – I did that too!! I loved that game! LOL!
RiverPoet – I guess it’s the same the world over, huh? I’ll never hear ‘juevos rancheros’ again without thinking of that!
Ha! Yeah. Why don’t they simply tell the truth..
“Now prepare to yell. ‘Cause this is gonna hurt like hell!”
(hey! that rhymed!)
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Yeah…I practically PASS OUT anytime I have to give blood for tests, and anytime I am in the vicinity of a needle I faint.
I cannot stand it!
meleah rebeccahs last blog post..I Am Two.
lol … that’s funny, but you know … I can’t remember what my nurse says … I’m usually so traumatized by it all. I think she may say, ‘this won’t hurt a bit’ which is also inaccurate. LOL
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The alternative “just a little poke” also sounds bad.
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Maureen – But it doesn’t, not really .. not like an injection, anyway. I wish I could think of a neat rhyming answer for you, but I have had far, far too little sleep to do anything clever this morning.
Meleah – I understand the needle phobia thing, No. 1 son has it to the point where he’d rather have a tooth filled without the injection. No 2 son has it to a lesser degree. Odd really, because neither OH or I have it. Just one of those things, I guess, like arachnophobia. Sorry about the picture, it was the best I could come up with.
DM – Well, yeah, that would be inaccurate too. And it depends a lot on the nurse. Some are brutal and should be banned. Usually the sweet-looking petite blondes.
Bee – Hi, and welcome! Yes, indeed. I don’t think we’ll be hearing them say that anytime soon! ROFL!
Hi Jay,
I love your number “b”. That’s great! To think, one word can have so many meanings.
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LOL I’ve noticed that too, being just a tad phobic of the process. Whatever the verb or noun it is not “little”. It can hurt a lot especially when your blood decides it has a street value greater than platinum and is gong to make itself unavailable for the hyperdermic. Far better if no judgement was made and the medical staff just said something like “Take a deep breath and keep breathing”. Something that is actually useful and can be concentrated on than so-called “scratches”.
Doris Mashs last blog post..Anger, not fear
Heh- another thing which apparently spans countries. I’ve noticed the shift toward “scratch” as well. I’ve also heard “Just a little bit of pressure.” Pressure is NOT puncture, as far as I’m concerned. Checking tire pressure doesn’t involve sticking jabby things into my car’s wheels. In fact, it’s just the OPPOSITE of that.
HM. I wonder if the World Health Organization has been redefining things…
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I have to go every 3 weeks to have blood drawn to check the level of anti-rejection (transplant) medication. The phlebotomists at the lab I go to have always used the word “pinch,” at least as long as I can remember.
Of course, there was that diminutive phlebotomist who was a little prick in her own right, but that is another story.
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Hey, I have an underactive thyroid too! But I don’t think I’ve ever heard “scratch.” Maybe “stick”?
That’s funny, tho, about “prick.” I’d probably snigger if I heard it. Can’t help it. I’m 5.
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Jay:
Excellent article, and very well written.
I love the way you lead into the whole political correctness thing: What a little prick! That’s great.
I agree with your idea. Where’s all this paranoia for certain words going? I mean, we are so afraid to call a thing a thing now days. We might offend someone. And what amazes me is that the minority rules in this issue. It seems that if one person says they are offended, even in the slightest, then we have to change the entire system. I say BS!
I’m with you – how does jamming a 3 inch long needle into a vein constitute a “scratch”??? Methinks your nurse should refer to a dictionary…
Angis last blog post..How Do You Measure A Man? (Or, How Do You Measure A Site’s Hits?)
Worlde Gonne Madde … indeed. Girl, you crack me up so much.
Now, I always hear “Just a stick.” And I guess it is, but it still hurts.
Euphemisms BORE ME SILLY and so does political correctness. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Of course we should all take care that we are not cruel and do not intentionally hurt another’s feelings. That is common decency.
Did you hear about this, in the news recently …
What do “black hole,” “angel food cake,” and “devil’s food cake” have in common?
They’re all racist terms, says a Dallas County, Texas, official.
A county commissioners’ meeting this week over traffic tickets turned into a tense discussion over race when one commissioner said the county’s collections office was like a certain astronomical phenomenon.
“It sounds like Central Collections has become a black hole,” Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said during the Monday meeting.
One black official demanded an apology, and Commissioner John Wiley Price, who also is black, said that type of language is unacceptable.
At the meeting, Mayfield said he intended his comments to be taken in the context of the scientific meaning, and became upset that he was being misunderstood.
In astronomy, the term black hole refers to a star that has collapsed upon itself, creating something so dense and small that it does not have any physical properties besides a gravitational force so great that even light cannot escape its pull.
Later, Price told MyFOXdfw.com that he believed it and other terms were racist.
“So if it’s ‘angel food cake,’ it’s white. If it’s ‘devil’s food cake,’ it’s black. If you’re the ‘black sheep of the family,’ then you gotta be bad, you know. ‘White sheep,’ you’re okay. You know?” Price said.
Price said people should watch their words when it comes to stereotypes.
“I think people should always be careful. You know, I’m okay if I’m ‘bartering’ with you. … But if I try to ‘Jew you down,’ Oooooh. Is that racist? I thought it meant the same thing? No, maybe it doesn’t.”
The world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking might have a solution to the problem over perception of the astronomical term. He refers to the phenomenon as “a singularity.”
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Barbara – Thanks! Yes, a word can have so many meanings, and I’d personally like to keep them all! LOL!
Doris – Yep, that would work. MIL’s veins were like yours. Poor woman went black and blue each time she had blood drawn.
Jenn – ‘Pressure’? I suppose there’s pressure involved, but with pressure it does usually stop short of ‘puncture’, as you say!
Mr N – Hahaha! Yep, there’s always one, huh? The prettiest nurse in our practice, the petite blonde, is the one who you don’t want drawing blood. I’m not needlephobic in the slightest but the sight of her coming out to call my name is enough to make me want to reschedule.
Three weeks? Yikes. Three months for me.
JD – I might snigger too, depending on what company I’m in. But not in a professional setting. Not usually, anyway.
Swubird – Yep, I do too. Let’s start reclaiming our words and our freedom of speech!
Angi – No kidding! LOL!
Jenny – Yes, I did, and I was both incensed and shaking my head with frustration. Why on earth don’t these people look into the whys and wherefores before they open their foolish mouths? Everyone surely knows that Angel Food cake is called Angel Food cake because it’s light as air (and Angels are beings of the air) and low calorie, and Devil’s Food cake is called Devil’s Food because it’s sinfully, wickedly good – and high calorie??? It’s not about bloody colour, it’s about good and evil!! Or is that politically incorrect now, too?
slight pinch yipes ! jumping off table I remeber when my
caesarean stitches came out – just a tiny prick .hahaha
Pretty soon we won’t be able to say “brownies” or “blondies”, either, because that’s discriminatory toward people with different hair colors…
Angis last blog post..How Do You Measure A Man? (Or, How Do You Measure A Site’s Hits?)
Just got back from Newport Beach, visiting brother Moon. While we were there I saw some cute little birds hopping around in the bushes. I took a photo and when I got home I found out that they were bushtits – now there’s a name that has to be used with care (snigger).
Don’t Bug Me!s last blog post..I wasn’t going to complain, but………
Ugh! I just had my re-occurring thyroid blood-draw. And I DID NOT get a warning about a little stick! I got a “Here we go!” she stuck it in, missed, DIDN’T pull out, but started to dig. GRRRR! I hate lab techs that seem to think that’s OK!
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Ha! No rhyming necessary… did you get my two emails?
Just checking.
Maureens last blog post..Set The Wayback Machine to 1975 Sherman
the nurses here still say prick, but i say stab. some of them are just cold about it.
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Sandy – Ah, yes, stitches! I haven’t had stitches in a long while, last lot of skin closures I had were staples! Now, they did pinch!
Angi – Soon we won’t be able to say anything, full stop. And we still claim to have countries with free speech?
DBM – Bushtits? That’s pretty good – and don’t you have one called the Booby, too? We have Blue-tits and Great-tits, over here. LOL!
JT – Ouch! Did you scream in her ear? Or perhaps that would have been counter-productive? Sorry she did that to you. I have no idea why they would think that was OK.
Maureen – No .. I answered the ones you sent me. I’ll go and check my mail.
Valerie – Stab is good. Stab works! ‘I’m just going to stab you in the arm, okay?’ ROFL!