Curmudgeonly Rants
I’m old. I’m a grumpy old man. It’s a role I embrace. I’ve aspired to be a curmudgeon for most of my adult life, and now I’m finally old enough to be one. I’m also a writer. I use words a lot. I respect words. Words have meaning. Clear use of words is important. The right word for the right idea, used in a clear consistent way. That’s why certain words that are consistently misused grate on me like fingernails on a blackboard.
Impact when you mean affect. If I hit you upside the head with a baseball bat, you’ve been impacted. If I cancel funding for your pet project, you’ve been affected. This substitution seems to have begun with bean counters and middle managers who thought that using impact made their inherently boring presentations sound sexier. It’s wormed its way into general usage and even newscasters do it now. It still isn’t right.
Nauseous when you mean nauseated. If your tummy is upset, you are nauseated. If your personality makes those around you sick to their stomachs, you are nauseous. One is a feeling, the other is a personality trait. Learn the difference, especially if you work in healthcare.
When did homeless turn into undomiciled? This sounds supercilious and pretentious, likely invented by some social work researcher looking make the homelessness problem sound like nothing more than a shortage of housing. It’s imprecise language. If I travel to a strange city without a place to stay, I’m temporarily ‘undomiciled’. I have a home, I just am not in it. If I am living on the streets with nowhere to go through misadventure or lack of resources, I am homeless. One needs a temporary solution. The other is a chronic problem with many roots and barriers to overcome. Changing the label doesn’t offer solutions and dilutes the real issues.
Finally, for now, I am sick of being devalued as a healthcare ‘provider’. I have an MD. I am a doctor. My wife has a Doctorate in Nursing Practice. She is a Nurse Practitioner, a noble profession with an orientation and skill set different from mine but just as valuable. To reduce us to the same denominator as ‘providers’ is an insidious devaluation promulgated by Corporate Medicine so that they don’t have to acknowledge our different skills and can treat us as equally replaceable widgets in the organizational charts. In the end, it is the patient that suffers. There is no place for a special relationship with a widget. One is as good as the other, right?
End of rant, but more to come.
Fair winds,
Bruce
