Gobbledygook geriatrica.

Abstract

Editor's note:—Over the past three years, we on the editorial staff have observed many remarkable examples of assault on the English language by American authors and reviewers. The following note plagiarizes some of these bloopers. The order of phrases and sentences, as well as the exact original sentence structure, has been altered in some instances to sustain the flow of the essay, but in each case, the grammatical or spelling error is precisely the same as in the original. The Managing Editor has occasionally added a gaffe observed outside the editorial process. She thereby acknowledges the obvious—that the problems are not confined to authors and reviewers of the Journal. The Managing Editor and I hope you will enjoy the gentle ribbing, that the “guilty” will recognize their “crimes,” and that all readers will be stimulated to be kind to the English language. DHS In lieu of the fact that these days people are writing funny in view of using good English, editors are trying to become expert cryptographers, deciphering sentences to determine it's meaning, plucking out unnecessary punctuation, inserting a mark where its needed to turn nonsense into something meaningful, and, finding a paragraph with a period at the end and none in the middle because its one sentence that (which?—whatever!) goes on and on and on and on, we fix that too. We read and re-read a review wondering why, after heaps of praise on a particular manuscript, the recommendation was for us to except the paper. It doesn't argue well for our language when centers are no longer on things, however they are around them instead. This is tricky even for the largest of centers. Some would auger that this is a nitpicky point, because we all know what was meant though stated imperfectly. Not all of us do know what self-recorded diary record wetting might mean. Some of us didn't even know diaries could wet, let alone set records. Nor did we have any idea there were warning signs to observe for, that are associated with choking while feeding patients. This is most worrisome, for its doubtful the feedees can be relied upon to do the Heimlich maneuver. Hopefully, someone will come up with unequivocable evidence that feeder choking is imminently treatable. It was no surprise to us that respiratory precautions were not instituted for ill patient care staff members. We figure the patients and staff at this nursing home are still trying to sort out who's who. And it bothered us to hear that nurse preventive interventions had been undertaken at one institution. While we cannot determine if the doctors or patients did this, its a good bet everyone will be sorry if the interventions are successful. Remember hyphens—those annoying little things stuck in between words? They pretty much disappeared just around the time no-smoking sections started popping up in establishments. Too bad. Now we all bunch up in front of the “No Smoking Area Available” sign not knowing if we should go in or stay out. Is it no wonder, then, that we lost site of a paper's purpose while puzzling over why the authors wanted to lower body negative pressure? Its a real phenomena that a handful of people know datum when they see them. At least it seems that way because this is an area about which virtually little is known. The data is not too good on this subject. Bare with us while we tell you the horrifying news that someone wrote a track on the psychiatry tract. We tackfully suggested they try a new tact. From our prospective, budget cuts affected recently seem to effect everyone. The economic situation has unleached a wide array of problems as the total emersion in the grant application process leaves no time for research or reviews. Writers pour over their finances desperately hoping to overcome the hurtle of no money by finding a way to peek interest in his perspective study. The predominate feeling is that finding funding supersedes all other activities because the shift of American demographics to a graying population and a national budget beleagered by rising health care costs bode of a collision course of a rising need with inadequate resources to respond and this is one of the many, many things we didn't learn in the seventh grade.