“No man is an island, entire of itself”. Eight words from John Donne’s “Meditation XVII”, one of his Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1624), that remind us why isolation, a necessary […]
Jeff Aronson’s Words
Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . Hooping cough
Hwæt! Several Old English poems begin thus, followed immediately or soon after by some variant of “we have heard ….”. The best known example is that of Beowulf, which dates […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . Prediction
Whoever said that prediction is very difficult, especially of the future, somehow gave it the ring of truth. But, like so many sayings of this sort, it has been attributed […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . More about anamnesis
Last week I discussed some meanings of anamnesis, starting with Plato, continuing with the patient’s history, and ending with Aristotle. There are more. Some are medical. All relate to memory, […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . Anamnesis
Last week I referred to Noam Chomsky’s theory of a universal grammar and Stephen Pinker’s account of the idea that our ability to use language is instinctive and innate. This […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . Painkillers—a linguistics based approach
Jamie Coleman, Professor of Clinical Pharmacology in Birmingham, has proposed replacing the term “painkiller” with “pain reliever”, in the hope of reducing people’s expectations of the therapeutic effects of opioid […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . The Oxford comma
In his inaugural Presidential address on 4 March 1801 Thomas Jefferson enunciated what he called “the essential principles of our government”. The list (see the Box) included “Peace, commerce, and […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . Coronas
The Coronaviruses were first identified by a group of virologists (J D Almeida, D M Berry, C H Cunningham, D Hamre, M S Hofstad, L Mallucci, K McIntosh, and D […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . New entries in the Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is updated every three months (“on a quarterly basis” as they put it—they mean “quarterly”). The latest updates and additions, published in December 2019, include […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . Phantastic pharmacology
Several IndoEuropean roots mean to shine: ARG (as in argent), AUS (East and Aurora), BHEL (blue, blind, blond/e), BHERƎG (bright), DHEU (divine and Jove), GHEL (gleam, gold, yellow), KAND (candle, […]