When I use a word . . . Medical slang: a taxonomy

Collecting medical slangI have been collecting examples of medical slang since reading Samuel Shem’s satirical medical novel, The House of God (1978).1 Shem’s book was full of slang medical terms: verbs such as buff, turf, and bounce, and nouns such as gomer, a LOL in NAD, and a zebra, not to mention the bowel run procedure.My collection of terms, compounded from many different sources, now runs to upwards of 3000 items. It includes words and phrases from all parts of my proposed spectrum of medical slang,2 and it covers all aspects of medical practice, including the use of recreational drugs.A taxonomyMost words that are newly introduced into the language are based on existing words. They either acquire new meanings or are adapted in different ways, and the same is true of slang. Based on my collection of terms I suggest the following taxonomy. It is not comprehensive, but I think…
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