Watch your language
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As Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., the famous American physician and writer, wrote in his essay titled Scholastic and Bedside Teaching: “I would never use a long word… where a short one would answer the purpose. I know there are professors in this country who ‘ligate’ arteries. Other surgeons only tie them, and it stops the bleeding just as well.”
Here are a few more words and phrases to avoid:
- multiple for many
- interface for talk
- time frame, or period of time, for time
- great majority for most
- ongoing for continuing
- demonstrated for showed
- enhances for increases
- minimises for decreases
- optimal for best
- prior to for before
- following for after
- quantify for measure
- input, impact and dialogue – used as verbs
From Edith Schwager’s book Medical English Usage and Abusage (Greenwood Publishing Group/Oryx Press).
As Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., the famous American physician and writer, wrote in his essay titled Scholastic and Bedside Teaching: “I would never use a long word… where a short one would answer the purpose. I know there are professors in this country who ‘ligate’ arteries. Other surgeons only tie them, and it stops the bleeding just as well.”
Here are a few more words and phrases to avoid:
- multiple for many
- interface for talk
- time frame, or period of time, for time
- great majority for most
- ongoing for continuing
- demonstrated for showed
- enhances for increases
- minimises for decreases
- optimal for best
- prior to for before
- following for after
- quantify for measure
- input, impact and dialogue – used as verbs
From Edith Schwager’s book Medical English Usage and Abusage (Greenwood Publishing Group/Oryx Press).
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