Stethoscope

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Dr. Goodword
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Stethoscope

Postby Dr. Goodword » Thu May 29, 2014 10:56 pm

• stethoscope •

Pronunciation: steth-ê-skop • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: An instrument for amplifying the sounds made by internal organs.

Notes: Today's Good Word comes from the field of medicine; we think it time it came out of that closet. It comes with several related words. The adjectives are stethoscopic and stethoscopical, but we must use the latter for the adverb, stethoscopically. We can also say stethoscoped "provided with a stethoscope". A person who wields a stethoscope is a stethoscopist, and the process of using a stethoscope is known as stethoscopy.

In Play: Let's first examine the normal use of today's word: "The doctor was perplexed when his stethoscope couldn't detect the heartbeat of a patient who was conscious and sitting up in bed." However, we have a wide range of possibilities for metaphorical uses: "The best stethoscope for the health of the economy is the stock market." Here is another: "Freud thought dreaming was a stethoscope for repressed, hidden emotions."

Word History: Today's Good Word, like so many others, was borrowed from French, specifically, stéthoscope, a word coined in 1819 by its inventor, French physician René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laënnec (1781-1826). Laënnec combined two Greek words, stethos "chest, breast" + scopein "to look at, examine", to create his new word. Greek stethos could be related to sternon "front of the chest", which Latin borrowed and converted to sternum. Sternum is related to a plethora of words throughout Indo-European languages, including English straw, strew and street, Russian stroit' "build", that we see in perestroika "rebuilding", and German streusel, from German streuen "to sprinkle, scatter". (Today's gratitude is owed our German friend, Monika Freund, who was attracted by the name of the creator of this Good Word.)
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jsdisher
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Re: Stethoscope

Postby jsdisher » Fri May 30, 2014 11:11 am

I am curious how sternum (front of the chest) and stern (back of the boat) might be related.

LukeJavan8
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Re: Stethoscope

Postby LukeJavan8 » Fri May 30, 2014 11:44 am

WELCOME
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Slava
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Re: Stethoscope

Postby Slava » Fri May 30, 2014 2:34 pm

I am curious how sternum (front of the chest) and stern (back of the boat) might be related.
Welcome to the Agora, jsdisher.

To answer your question, it looks like the words just happen to look related. They are not. Sternum comes from the Greek, whereas stern comes from Old English (styrne).
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.

LukeJavan8
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Re: Stethoscope

Postby LukeJavan8 » Sat May 31, 2014 12:00 pm

Good question, and welcome, again. Join us often.
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