Wednesday, January 24, 2007

3398 Silly word choices

An article on full body scans for skin cancer for female veterans I noticed this odd phrasing, "We found that 16% of subjects would refuse the examination if the primary care provider were of the opposite sex, whereas 38% would not refuse but be less willing to be examined. "

Seems that whole sentence could be tightened up a bit by using the term, "male doctor."

And who knew our brave women soldiers were so squeamish around men?

Archives of Dermatology. 2006;142:312-316.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree. This statement fits into the category of "using the most possible words to express the smallest idea."

Norma said...

We are both word nerds, Joan.

Anonymous said...

I too am squeamish around male doctors ... which is strange because I'm normally perfectly comfortable around "humans of the opposite sex" (or "men" for all you word nerds out there!) :)