Speech that irritates

doi:10.1136/bmj.326.7387.507/a

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George Dunea, attending physician

Cook County Hospital, Chicago, USA

Professors of medicine exposed to case presentations by generations of house officers might be forgiven if they eventually develop an aversion to certain overused expressions. Perhaps most annoying among these is the constant use of “multiple,” which has completely replaced the older English adjectives “few,” “several,” and “many.” In the context of a skimped medical history, “multiple operations” means more than one, less than 20, nobody knows, nobody bothered to ask, and …