Errors of language in orthopaedics.

Abstract

The varied influences to which medicine has been subjected, and the ages that it has endured, have produced a language that is in constant flux. The language of orthopaedics includes corruptions that, while they defy the rules of philology, have gained acceptance essentially because they are familiar. An awareness and understanding of such corruptions is useful, both for restoring consistency and accuracy of communication and for providing a window into history. Greek and Latin are inflected languages. Endings are appended to nouns and verbs to confer distinct senses. Nouns belong to declensions and are said to be declined; verbs belong to conjugations and are said to be conjugated. What is achieved by inflection in Greek and Latin is achieved principally by word order and prepositions in English. In Greek and Latin, the endings of nouns identify gender, number, and case. The gender may be masculine, feminine, or neuter. The number may be singular or plural. (A third form of numerical designation, dual, is reserved for things that naturally occur as pairs; this nomenclature does not exist in orthopaedics.) Cases of relevance are the nominative, indicating the subject; the genitive, indicating possession; and the accusative, indicating the object. In Latin, nouns are grouped into five declensions. Excessive inclination toward the midline of the shaft relative to the neck of the os femoris is known by the Latin term coxa vara . In contrast, the Latin term for abnormal shortening of the neck is coxa brevis (and not coxa breva, which has the appeal of being more melodious). The adjectives describing the hip belong to different declensions, so their endings differ1,2. In the Nomina anatomica 3 , the thigh bone is designated as the femur . In Latin, femur signifies “the thigh.” The “bone of the thigh” is …