Have you ever noticed that the English version of words is generally shorter? I don’t know about all languages but by comparison with French, the English version is usually shorter than the same thing stated in French.
This is not by accident. English works at it. Whether it be with acronyms or other shortening methods, English speakers seem to thrive on brevity. Lately I have seen a commercial with Jennifer Garner which tries to do this with a doctor’s title. They blatantly use the word derm for meaning dermatologist.
I guess that’s it. We’re doing it now. We’re officially shortening doctor’s long, long titles. And bonus points will be given if we succeed in making the titles only one syllable long.
How about endocronologist? Let’s shorten that title to end. As in, “I am going to meet my end, today.” Why pretty soon a whole bunch of people in Canada will have suggested you call 988 otherwise known as the suicide prevention line. In order to not waste the time of such a valuable resource as 988, perhaps we can use the short form endo for an endocronologist.
How about anesthesiologist? We could try shortening it to the first syllable so it would be an. But this sounds like an indefinite article or a woman’s name. So how about anes? Well what would it be if your anes and proctologist consulted? Sounds like a colonoscopy! Anes unfortunately sounds like something else. So how about thesi? I had a consult with my thesi today. Much better.
So how about that proctologist? Proc might be thought of as being short for proclamation. And you really don’t want your results and procedures read out like a proclamation. Perhaps prockey could be used as the shortened version. But that name reminds us of a game being played. A hard hitting, violent game perhaps isn’t what you want to think of as happening down there. Maybe proctologist should remain untouched by our shortening.
Then there’s oncologist. There I support the one syllable shortening to onc. Even though an ankh is pronounced the same. Oncologists are cancer doctors and a cancer diagnosis can mean death. But the ankh is a symbol that means life. Lately this battle between life and death often means more life after the cancer diagnosis. That is the trend. So life isn’t a bad symbol for the oncologist.
These are just some specialties I’m familiar with. The list of doctor specialties is, I believe well over 30. Have fun shortening their specialties yourself. Remember the English language will be proud of you.
