99

In an Intro to Clinical Medicine small group yesterday, I found out something that was mildly interesting--

So you know how some doctors ask you to say something like "blue moon" or "toy boat" when they are listening to your lungs? You might not have heard that--but know that it happens. Well, some doctors might have asked you to say "ninety-nine" instead. While in some medical books it says to do this, we learned yesterday that it is wrong to say ninety-nine. What? A book in medicine was wrong? Here's the funny thing--the reason it is wrong is because it was a German who first discovered that deep "o" sounds are what we need to listen to (I won't bore you with details on why) in the lungs and guess what ninety-nine in German is? Neunundneunzig. Ok, I know few people know how to pronounce what I just wrote out. Here's a key factor: the eu in German is pronounced "oi." So, in German, ninety-nine gives you the deep "o" sound (like toy boat), but in English, it doesn't. Some pretty important things really are lost in translation. Funny how so many things come back to German.....

..Tschüss!!