On my list of things I wish I had done twenty years ago, getting a trademark on the word “awesome” ranks first as the most awesomely awesome thing I could have done, but somehow didn’t. I still hold out hope that there is at least one brilliant no-real-work-required idea that will magically funnel billions into the family bank account, but for that to happen, the legal mechanism to strike word-gold needs to remain in place. That’s why I’m thrilled at the news that Facebook has received preliminary approval from the U.S. Patent Office to trademark the word “Face”.
This should slow the momentum of shameless online mojo-stealers like Faceplace, Facesite, Faceweb, Faceworld, Facedepot, Faceforum, Facespot, Facepamphlet, Facemeet, Facechat, Facedate, Facebin, Facefriend, Facetalk, Facegab and Faceplant.
I don’t know if any of these online places actually exist, but it doesn’t matter. They’re all name ideas I had just after I read the article that told me it’s too late to successfully establish website names like this. So yes, this is a necessary move. Without big government intervention to require creativity, we would soon find ourselves trapped in a fanciful, faceful future when it comes to naming websites. In the virtual world, few letter combinations are more powerful and evocative than F-A-C-E. And people would not be shy to use it because we are, as a species, inclined to take the shortcut.
If only the Republican National Committee had shown the foresight to trademark “gate” as a suffix to describe any embarrassing, unlawful political activity. “Face” has the same discouraging potential.
But what are the long-term implications?
With online use of the word “face” primarily reserved for one commercial entity, a handy, everyday substitute word is needed to describe the forward side of your skull. Something already in use, perhaps?
I nominate “Mug”.
Mug is short and memorable, and it sounds down-to-Earth in an approachable, friendly way. Mug is a great equalizer. While it is possible to have a beautiful and even a gorgeous face, neither of those descriptors will sit comfortably alongside “mug”. Loveable, yes. Lovely, not so much. And an added bonus – for those with delicate features, “porcelain” works either way.
“Mug” already has some common face-related uses, as in “mug shot” and “mugging for the camera”. And “mug” could easily be dropped into existing song lyrics to replace the newly protected F-word. “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Mug”, for example, is a perfectly suitable fix. Although “Let’s Mug The Music and Dance” takes on clumsy new meanings, perhaps as an apt reference to Bristol Palin’s performance on Dancing With The Stars.
There are other difficult wrinkles to be worked out. Surgeons who make a living performing face lifts would have to come up with a good alternative to “Mug Lift”, which sounds less like a surgical procedure and more like a beer drinking competition.
If you could “own” one word in the English language, which one would you choose?
Trail Baboon 
Rise and Shine Babooners!
This will be one of those, “I have to think about the question throughout the day” kind of responses. By day’s end I will either conclude that I am not meant to own a word, other than the name combination I was given by my parents, OR some word that should be mine will come to me in a flash. I would think about owning “Rise and Shine,” but then what about my Grandma who used to say it? Frankly, it feels like enough ownership just to write it every morning.
The concept of owning words seems alien to me. Impossible, perhaps. But then, to Native Americans, the white European concept of owning land seemed alien. They never did agree with the idea, and as a result found themselves herded onto dry, undesirable little plots no one else wanted that they then “owned” whether they agreed to it or not. So if I don’t choose to own a word will I be consigned to some profane, undesirable part of the dictionary? Something beginning with an F, perhaps, that only a porn star would want to own?
I recently heard some guy on Future Tense saying that everyone should buy the domain name for their names and their children’s names as they are born. He did not of course, explain his reasoning, OR I just did not understand it. Why would someone do this? remains the question I was left with these many days later.
Off to the day and to ponder owning my vocabulary.
LikeLike
i like the word “clabber.”
a good and gracious morning to You All
busy day today
LikeLike
A very dairy kind of word.
LikeLike
do you have a sourdough starter?
LikeLike
Good morning and what is the good word,
I agree with Jacque about not really wanting to own a word. Just for today I will try to think of a word to own. Can I own two words and can they be names? If so, I would choose to own my name, James Tjepkema. I would choose this so that I could control the use of my proper name, James which I don’t like very much. I like to be called Jim, not James. For formal ocaisons I would allow the use of James. I would own James in the combination James Tjepkema and allow the use of James by any one as long as it was not James as in James Tjepkema.
LikeLike
jim you got a shot at it. with a handle like that you can likely get jamestjepkma.com . you ca likely get the aol version the gmail version. my last name is jones and there is no chance of locking up a jones with anything obvious . go for it jim. quick before it gone.
LikeLike
Okay, maybe I should go for it except I don’t know how it would keep people from refering to me as James. Tim, at least everybody knows how to pronounce your last name. Nobody can get my last name right.
LikeLike
Since it seems outrageous to legally lock up any word and make the rest of us pay to use it (why do I think of a troll under a bridge?), I’ll go to a silly suggestion. Look at this paragraph (from Car Talk’s Puzzler series). What makes it unusual?
“This is an unusual paragraph. I’m curious as to just how quickly you can find out what is so unusual about it. It looks so ordinary and plain that you would think nothing was wrong with it. In fact nothing is wrong with it. It is highly unusual though, study it and think about it but you still may not find anything odd. But if you work at it a bit you might find out. Try to do so without any coaching.”
I didn’t get it. But the paragraph does not have one use of the word “the.” So that’s my choice. I want rights to “the.” I’m not greedy. I’ll take just a few cents for each time the word is used.
Have a wonderful, mellow post-Thanksgiving weekend my fellow Baboons. Thanks again for that terrific holiday meal, You-know-who.
LikeLike
There aren’t any e’s either.
LikeLike
You remembered it better than I! Thanks! I am giving you 20 free “the”s to use!
LikeLike
you are a fun new addition to the group caroline and callipygous
also has a wonderful google images offering.
LikeLike
great find beth ann
LikeLike
You went to Thanksgiving with the name you cannot say? Voldemort from Harry Potter. I thought they were all Brits!
LikeLike
My instant gut reaction word is callipygous. One of my favorites and always good as a conversation starter and to bring one to the dictionary.
LikeLike
You’re right — that’s a great word that sent me to the dictionary. A fun start to the day!
LikeLike
you are a fun new addition to the group caroline and callipygous
also has a wonderful google images offering. (take 2)
LikeLike
Dale,
You will probably need to face the fact that most of us on the Trail are not propietary enough to claim a word for our own!
LikeLike
Beth-Ann,
You are correct. That’s why I asked that particular question – I knew it would make non-proprietary Trail Babooners scratch their heads and struggle with this difficult concept through the day, and perhaps through the entire weekend.
Weekend!
That might be my word.
How powerful would one feel to have control over the use of “weekend”?
LikeLike
i’ll bet that one would be a keeper. what will yopu do with your power?
LikeLike
As word owner, I guess I would try to make sure that anyone promoting the idea of an activity specifically for the “weekend” would have to get my permission to call it that. Otherwise, they’d have to come up with another term to describe these Regularly Occurring Days Absent Remunerative Employment.
As in, “What are you doing this RODARE?”
That doesn’t have much of a ring to it. Sounds like a religious holiday from another planet.
Better pay the guy so we can say “weekend”.
LikeLike
I think I am like many of my fellow baboons – I can’t imagine owning a word. Words are the ultimate “freeware” in my opinion. While trademarked words and phrases have gotten us into the realm of “shareware” when it comes to words, I don’t think I should have to pay a licensing fee to use a word like “fabulous” or “Quixotic” (the former, however, might raise a ton of cash in user fees from the drag queen and QVC show host communities…). And the next question becomes, can you own any word, or only those in your native tongue? Where do we draw the line with foreign words or commonly used foreign phrases (“mise en scene,” perhaps).
Will ponder some more, but really – I think if people started owning plain old everyday words (and I really think that some trademarked names and phrases are pushing the limits), I might have to become a Word Guerilla. I would go out into the world, fighting word monopolies and word hoarders armed only with an OED and a red sharpie for incorrect spellings and poor grammar usage…(and maybe Shakespeare’s Complete Works to read the really boring bits from the Histories to particular offensive characters followed by some of the better stuff from the comedies to set them on new path…).
LikeLike
Go, Anna! 🙂
LikeLike
i saw a show just recently about two guys who are traveling all over fixing incorrect billboards, signage and public errors of grammer punctuation and spelling. it was a riot. they stop and talk to shop owners, state sign makers and people who print flyer and brochures etc.
quickly find your place in that world before they lock it up.
LikeLike
I used to put up a fight every time my daughter came home with a grade report. There was a standard form for reporting grades in the Saint Paul School system, and it had an ungrammatical title! I pointed this out to them about six times, and it was never changed.
LikeLike
looks like we have a second member for the team
LikeLike
I’m hoping that maybe I can get a cape and a mask for this gig…although that might go against the “guerilla” thing…hmm. Maybe dictionary fatigues and an alphabet covered beret.
LikeLike
use steves outfit from the other picture. perfect word gorilla garb.
LikeLike
The use of orientate and normalcy where orient and normality should be just drives me nuts.
LikeLike
does it come up often?
LikeLike
More than you know, tim…right along with “impactful” (one of my pet peeve words). You can “have an impact”….but “impactful” is just lazy copyrighting.
LikeLike
yeah i go along with that 24/7 , the whole nine yards. at the end of the day, it all comes out in the wash
LikeLike
“servicing…”
LikeLike
love is the word. i was certain. then i got to thinking about something i heard the dalai lama said. “happiness is all anyone wants” he is right so i will take happiness for my word.
LikeLike
I thought “Grease” was the word, but maybe that’s just for us kids born in the 60s…
LikeLike
i think that one may have run its course.
LikeLike
And for those born in the 50’s, consuming culture in the early ’60’s, I believe “bird” is the word.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fruHQhNe-UM
LikeLike
I stand corrected. 😉
LikeLike
Whenever I hear that word I think of the movie ‘Full Metal Jacket’… love the song… certainly a powerful movie… disturbing…
LikeLike
Okay, owning the word comination “James Tjekema” might not be the best choice, even if it would prevent people from calling me by the name James. How about never? If you can never say never, except when I allow it, then everything will be possible as long as I don’t allow never and I will not allow it.
LikeLike
i was told never say never and i live by that rule
LikeLike
Can you never say never say never?
LikeLike
never
LikeLike
Greetings! I’m still giggling over “Verily, Sherrilee” from yesterday. Unfortunately, I’m not coming up with anything fun or creative this morning. Interesting sounding words like pusillanimous or scintillating catch my ear, but are they worth owning? Indeed, are they ~priceless~? As Dale mentioned, this is something to ponder.
When I worked at Pillsbury, the PR department was quite proactive in protecting the word “Bake-Off.” Every little church cooking contest or chili bender that dared to use the word Bake-Off, would get a firm, but carefully worded letter to please not use Bake-Off so it’s not confused with the vaunted, one-and-only Pillsbury Bake-Off. An interesting corporate concept. Will see what others have to say on this.
LikeLike
there is the new member recruiting tool we have been looking for. we can promote the trial baboon bake off and make the front pages as the only non conforming bake off competitioin not to back down to those corporate pigs at pillsbury. what catagories should we offer. shall we make it interesting and use only goat dairy products or something memorable?
LikeLike
Tim, you’re in fine form today. Yes, let’s use goat dairy products, organic produce, sustainably farmed meats — or just keep it vegetarian — I like that. The Anti-Bake-Off! No processed foods whatsoever! No corporate sponsorships — just a grass roots Bake-Off movement to real food! We’re on a roll!!
LikeLike
i’m with you joanne
LikeLike
The Sustainable Farming Association has protected their use of “Festival of Farms” because they could be prevented from continuing to use this name in the future if some other group decided to copy right it.
LikeLike
Jim — that’s just classic, and it exemplifies something I truly hate in the American legal system. The way our law has evolved, businesses or groups have to act like thugs when someone uses their special words or they might lose that use of the word. What a lousy choice that leaves. Lawyers!
LikeLike
While we all seem to bristle at the notion of owing a word, I might make a case for licensing cliches. Journalism–yea, verily, even public radio journalism!–thrives on buzz words, cliches and trendy phrases. I wish there was some authority that governed such things. If Gary Eichten wants to say “when push comes to shove” or other journalists insist on sticking “going forward” in every other sentence, make them pay tribute! They’d get as many of their beloved cliches as they want, but they would have to contribute a certain amount of money each time. It is fun to think of how that money could be reinvested! At the end of the day, it could do some good. Going forward.
LikeLike
I’d like to see how you can leverage this in the foreseeable future.
LikeLike
Mark my words, when push comes to shove there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and with this one, Steve, the ball is in your court. Make them pay! After all, why buy a cow when you can get the milk for free?
LikeLike
you got my favorite peeve. at the end of the day…uggghhh.
i was thinking about the money problems today i the world i was wondering how we paid for life before taxes began in 1913. it was all paid for by taxing the products being imported. all was fine then we swithched. i say switch back. tax all imports or the dollars they pull form the economy, or if we want to remain domestic we could simply tax tv watching, video game playing, cell phone using, gas usage, added sin tax on alcohol, tobacco and legalize recreational drugs, prostitution and gambling, we’d have to figure out how to spend it all.
LikeLike
Oh no, tim! I can’t support that system. Right now we tax income and don’t charge too much for vices. My vices FAR outweigh my puny income! If you make this your campaign plank and run for office, I’ll have to arrange for you to have an accident. Nothing personal, of course!
LikeLike
you would probubally want to get involved in the other item on my platform. the whistleblowers spending program. anyone who points out wasteful spending (100 dolllar hammers, bridges to nowhere) get the money instead. next time a hammer is needed we use the 3 dollar solution instead of the 100 solution until we get it al whittled down to the right amount. you could be rich in no time with your observant eye. think you could retire in an hour and a half.
LikeLike
I would claim the word permanence. I use it all the time in my work when I advocate for children having permanence instead of being yanked back and forth from foster care to neglectful parents to foster care to parents, over and over. It is unfortunate that permanence usually means living forever with other people, but the alternative is so destructive. There, I have had my Saturday rant and I can be nice now.
LikeLike
Permanence for children as a direct correlation to stability is a good thing, not a luxury, nor should it be “maybe.” Go Renee! Rant on!
LikeLike
it must be hard to see that going on as a part of your everyday world. i am with you on the wish for a stable environment for the poor little guys who are caught in the middle. bless you for being the one to intercede.
LikeLike
Renee-Be strong and continue to advocate for permanence!
LikeLike
Ditto from a former CPS worker and state trainer.
LikeLike
I want phrases, not just words. “Cutting edge technology”, “paperless society” and “bipartisan congress” are ones that always make me laugh. Of course, if I want to rake in the bucks, then I want “because I said so” and “if your friends jumped off _____ (fill in the blank), would you want to?”
LikeLike
so is your old man, your mama is so big…, i know you are but what am i.
LikeLike
Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?
LikeLike
classic
LikeLike
military brat I once worked with declared “military intelligence” an oxymoron (now oxymoron, there is a word to conjure with)
LikeLike
rush limbaugh wanted some but then he found out he had misheard the statement
LikeLike
I want to own ‘like’, but not for personal gain. My goal is philanthropic. Once I owned ‘like’, I would ban it’s use forever, destroying it if I had to, in order to save the world from the following kinds of speech: ‘Like, it was a really cool concert but my friend was all, like, “Ah, it was only like okay, ” and I’m like in his face saying, “Dude! It was like the most radical concert ever. What are you, like from another planet?”
And if we ever get into phrases, as sherrilee proposed, then I want the concession on ‘you know’. Early retirement, here I come!
Cheers,
Chris in Owatonna
LikeLike
ill bet facebook would change the response to your feelings about one of their posts but if you could sneak it in just for a week of=r two you would have enough likes to build skyscrapers to the moon
LikeLike
I would like love you for doing this like forever. And you would be my BFF
LikeLike
*Like!*
LikeLike
Great conversation, all!
Has anyone taken “Lugubrious” yet? Probably not. A friend of mine once worked it into a poem he presented around a campfire in northern MN. I have fond memories of this word.
Each month I would become lugubrious after receiving the royalty check in the mail as it wouldn’t be enough to buy a newspaper.
LikeLike
lugubrious is open dan, the world does seem to be getting more and more lugugrios as we speak but i challange you to tell me why you want to own it? can you find remember or throw the jist of the fireside poetry. we do have the rhyme ‘t have to be perfectwave file for blog poetry. as i have proven many times, it doesn’t have to be perfect. just sorta poetry. love your joining us for the holidays.
LikeLike
my magic fingetrs insert stuff an sometimes i catch sometimes i dont, rhyme and wave used to be subsequent words and now they have a puzzler in their midst. everyone here loves a challange i find. no one even comments on my typo’s anymore
love you guys
LikeLike
Hey Tim – I so enjoy reading your missives. Each time I reread, they produce a little more.
Further research revealed it was actually housed in lyrics to a song. The song writer was accompanied only by his guitar. To spare you all the inside jokes and a few inappropriate rhymes, I’m only attaching the first two versus along with the chorus.
Title: I don’t care if I get no birds, I’m just happy to be here with you guys!
It’s TBS, the sequel and I’m happy to be back
We gather here this time of year at Chateau Tamarac
Fall colors of the woods and the sky like sunlight through a prism
Turn my thoughts to finer things and my favorite Burt’sm
I’m just here for the fun, my borrowed gun throw lead into the skies
But I don’t care if we get anything, I’m just happy to be here with you guys
Well Hedstrom he’s the founding dad, a trailblazer he truly is.
He moved up North, now he’s a tick, but he’s so lugubrious.
Dan O’s got the fastest gun, he looks like Tim McVeigh.
And Paatalo, can he Paddle-oh All the way to Hudson Bay.
Chorus:
I don’t care if I get no birds, just pass me another beer.
I don’t care if I get no birds, Jay, can I borrow your gear?
We’ll be eatin, drinkin, fartin’, talking smart and telling lies.
I don’t care if I get no birds, I’m just happy to be here with you guys.
LikeLike
love it dan, i had a gorup thwat would go up to brule wisc every june kayaking and there was a mandatory limerick night where old and new got a verse. the new guys wondered what that was all about but the old timers looked forward to reading and singing last years as much as writing this years. i will find that notebook in one of my storage boxes and put it in a place of honor. good for you to have it in a place where you can access it.
LikeLike
Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum;
Si þin nama gehalgod
to becume þin rice
gewurþe ðin willa
on eorðan swa swa on heofonum.
urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg
and forgyf us ure gyltas
swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum
and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge
ac alys us of yfele soþlice
LikeLike
It’s the “Our Father, who art in Heaven …” prayer, right? I have no clue what language that is — it could just be Olde English or something. Enlighten us, Clyde.
LikeLike
very good joanne. gotta be russian. clyde do you go to the translator or do you have the ability to type on foreign keyboards?does it end in the kingdom and the power and the glory, or with the correct ending?
LikeLike
That isn’t Russian. Maybe Joanne is right about it being Olde English. You would us the cyrillic alphabet to write in Russian and that isn’t in cyrillic.
LikeLike
another amazing piece of wisdom jim has filed away there that we discover as we pick away. (clyde snickering in the background)
LikeLike
Tim – I’m guessing by the syntax that it has what you consider the correct ending — it doesn’t appear to be the longer ending. There are special characters used — just not cyrillic, Arabic, Russian, Greek, Middle Eastern, etc. It doesn’t look like Scandinavian or Gaelic characters, either. Nor is it Romance language based, I don’t believe. I am no expert on any of this — just a good guess. I’m going with Olde English or Old German/Norse; unless Clyde is just messing with us.
So, Clyde — just what is it anyway?
LikeLike
Welch?
LikeLike
do you know how to drive a polack crazy?
LikeLike
I think this is Old English… or Anglo Saxon. It reminds me of something we looked at in my History of Languages class at Metro State. May have actually been this!
LikeLike
tim, orientate the polack with normalcy and impactfully?
LikeLike
Sorry. Did not mean for this to appear. Lord’s Prayer in Old English from the western part of England in 850 A.D. ca.
You talked about the purist point of view on language change, which to kill some time made me think of an old pedantic argument of mine, which made me look this up, but I did not want to be pedantic, but I was wondering what would happen to the OE characters. So I cut-and-pasted it in to see what would happen. Was not being coy; never meant to post it.
LikeLike
perfect jacque
LikeLike
I was so sure it was Finnish-crazy language, that one.
LikeLike
you guys are good.
LikeLike
I claim a non-existent word: MYSTERICAL. It combines magical with mysterious and describes some life experiences pretty well. Many years ago, I was running teen groups for the local YMCA. We were discussing the “meaning of words” at one point and I came up with an exercise for their restless minds. We brainstormed common cliches and then drew actual pictures depicting them. “Jumping to conclusions” showed a person jumping from one position right on top of a conclusion. “Stiff upper lip” was a real easy one to draw. Drawings of “throwing the baby out with the bathwater”, “put your money where your mouth is” and “get a clue” were followed by a seemingly endless list of everyday cliches. The real lesson here was to realize how silly and abundant our colloquialisms were.
LikeLike
ya so draw mysterical
LikeLike
I’ve just been catching up with entries going back to the day before Thanksgiving. I’ve had a busy week and had no time to participate. My whole family was here – my Mom stayed for three days – and everybody left yesterday. Mom is uncomfortable around anything she doesn’t understand or know how to use, so my computer use was minimal.
Thanks for the great guest blogs everybody! You all do such a great job! This year I’m very thankful for all of you and I feel fortunate to have found a group like you. In the last hour you’ve brought me laughter and tears, and now I have to choose a word? To own?
I can’t do it. When Dale said the US Patent Office is giving permission to Facebook to own the word “face” it just shocked me. How can they even do that? Language is a part of all of us, of our shared culture. It’s what makes communities possible. How can a word be owned? I can’t get my little brain around this new information. I’ll be like Jacque – banished to the profane parts of the dictionary or maybe the archaic, Shakespearean parts. I really think Sherrilee should have “verily,” though. It works so well.
LikeLike
welcome back
LikeLike
Renee, I just want to thank you for the vision I had on the long drive back from Iowa of all those “hoardes” rising out of basements, attics, and garages, and going back to their Walmart Motherland.
Dale, I think you need the rights to “keepers”
LikeLike
you take it mig and charge for its use.
LikeLike
Nice to see Sunday comments… day is almost done for me. I have gone forth and done battle with the tree and it has won. Half the last string of lights are in a pile on the floor behind the tree. I’ll be covering it up w/ a towel later on. Hope everyone had a fabulous weekend!
LikeLike
Evening–
I’ve been reading this over the weekend and thinking of words but the mind is a blank… I get words stuck in my head on occasion; sort of like an ear worm of language I guess… I had ‘Boutros Boutros-Ghali’ in there for a quite a while… but then they’re gone… mind like a steel sieve I’m telling ya.
Had a good weekend! Got my snow fence up finally. And replaced some Icicle lights on the house… washed the dog and replaced a switch in my son’s ceiling fan but it still doesn’t work… but I can still check those things off and that was my goal!
Anna– send me a note so we can coordinate bread starter delivery next week.
bkhain (at) aol dot com
Catch all of you on the flip flop.
LikeLike
who has starter?
LikeLike
Psychosis and hospitaler are mine.
My wife is not feeling well Thanksgiving morning, so I let her sleep, in part because she so badly overdid on Wednesday getting ready to go over to our daughter’s Thursday morning. So I let her sleep until 10. She says she does not feel well and I leave her sleeping. So my daughter and I decide we will cancel our trip over to her. At 1 I’m getting suspicious, she seems confused but she says he is getting better. At 3 I cannot keep her awake. So I tell her I am calling an ambulance, to which she becomes very upset. So I force her to stay awake to get her dressed enough to take her in to emergency. She had never felt warm, but at 4 her temp is 102 and she is incoherent and cannot stay awake for more than a few seconds. They start giving her saline and an antibiotic in the arm and in the drip. At 5:30 her temp is 104.2 and she still does not feel warm. They puzzle over her 19 prescriptions and five major health problems including lupus and a small stroke or two in the past, maybe, hard to tell. But they have to do something and decide to load her with Tylenol and Ibuprofin, which she is not supposed to have but they have to do something. At 6:15 her temp starts to drop and she starts to wake up. At 6:45 her temp is 97.5 and she is cogent, although she has no memory of the whole day.
We go up to a room. I have my Thanksgiving dinner in her room at 9:30; my daughter brought it over. The next morning the doctor comes in, a hospitaler, a gp who just works the hospital, a new term to me. He says all her blood and urine tests and chest x-ray are negative. So therefore, e says, it must be a psychosis. I asked him if he knows her health history. He says no it was not available (more later). So he spends 1.5 minutes with a woman whose history he does not know nor her in any way except a horizontal living body on a bed and declares her psychotic.
Chapter 2 to following a second post after I give my wife a back rub (we came home Saturday).
LikeLike
That should be hospitalist.
LikeLike
My next work is professionalism.
Later on Friday a neurologist comes in. (But first some background. Mankato has to health care systems. Mankato clinic and ISJ hospital and clinic, a part of the Mayo health care system. We go to Mankato Clinic.) So the neurologist comes in and asks some questions, the right ones, as my wife and I would pretty well know form working at the U of M Dept. of Neurology way back when. He is aware of the history we had given down in emergency. The he asks if she has a neurologists. She says Dr. ___________. He says that he does not know who that is. My wife says in the Mankato Clinic. He says, with a disgusted tone in his voice, “Oh, from the other side” and nods his hide towards the side of the ISJ hospital where the Mankato Clinic is attached but seemingly a continent away. This disjuncture has been reported by many. So he says he will order an MRI and get back with the results after that. She has the MRI later that night. The next morning the hospitalist comes back and addresses almost every word of the conversation to me and even asks me how she is doing and not her. He says the MRI showed nothing and the neurologists suggests she goes to see her own neurologist soon (soon, of course, is never possible as he surely knows). So he says they have no diagnosis and she can go home.
LikeLike
he has no diagnosis so she can go home. if they did that with your car you’d explain that you needed to fix it so you could go home. they forget with bodies.
LikeLike
My last term Mayo Hospital.
HOSPITAL, from HAUS, OG for “house;” PITAL, OE from AS for “up building.”
MAYO from, OI from the Etruscan for “ongoing time.”
Yielding the meaning “permanently under construction.” Or in modern Twitterese, “I dare you; just try to find the emergency room entrance and later you can walk all the way around the building in the dark at 2:30 a.m. because there is no connection you are allowed to use between the wards and the emergency room.”
LikeLike
Aw Clyde. That stinks. All of it. No better way to say it, at least not in polite company. Better days ahead, I hope.
LikeLike
sorry to hear about the exeperience. glad to hear you were there to look after things. the doctor with the psychotic easy out answer is what i really hate. the lets throw in an mri response seems to have taken the place of antibiotics. they can say they did something and they likely have an ownership interest in the mri shop to help pay their bills. hope your wife is feeling better soon. keep us informed.
LikeLike