Nauseous grammar
In the world of medicine there has been a grammatical battle raging for what seems an eternity. “Who are the warring parties?”, you ask. On one side are those that say “nauseating”, and on the the other, those that say “nauseous”.
“Other related terms from the 17th century – nauseation, nauseative, nauseity, nausity – are now obsolete or used very rarely…”
Who is right? The merging borders of written and spoken language; the cyclical nature of grammatical favour and the explosion of social media are to blame for the confusion surrounding linguistic semantics.Whereas the use of nauseous in the subjective sense when speaking now seems a given, nauseated is still holding its own in text. Conversely, the use of nauseous to indicate the cause of nausea is rapidly falling into disuse in spoken conversation (and when it is used, it is sometimes confused with noxious), whereas it maintains only a rapidly diminishing tenuous lead over nauseating in text.
Find out more at the OUPblog: Nauseating or Nauseous or at the AMA Manual of Style
And from the standpoint of medicine as an art for the prevention and cure of disease, the man who translates the hieroglyphics of science into the plain language of healing is certainly the more useful.
William Osler: ‘Teacher and Student‘, in Aequanimitas.
PS. For those that missed Toxicology Conundrum 015, here’s a vivid reminder of why its all bad, regardless of whether you’re feeling nauseated or nauseous…
Chris is an Intensivist and ECMO specialist at The Alfred ICU, where he is Deputy Director (Education). He is a Clinical Adjunct Associate Professor at Monash University, the Lead for the Clinician Educator Incubator programme, and a CICM First Part Examiner.
He is an internationally recognised Clinician Educator with a passion for helping clinicians learn and for improving the clinical performance of individuals and collectives. He was one of the founders of the FOAM movement (Free Open-Access Medical education) has been recognised for his contributions to education with awards from ANZICS, ANZAHPE, and ACEM.
His one great achievement is being the father of three amazing children.
On Bluesky, he is @precordialthump.bsky.social and on the site that Elon has screwed up, he is @precordialthump.
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