This week marks the convergence of two great gustatory holidays, Thanksgiving and Hanukkah. The last time this happened was 1888 and the next time may have Jews lighting candles from spaceships 79,043 years from now (by one calculation). For enjoyment, see these links:
Carve the Turkey and Pass the Latkes (NY Times)
Dr. Len Hoenig, our South Florida Kosher Korrespondent, sent us Thanksgivukah Gobble Tov greetings:
An Esay on Unesesary Leters
There is far too much paperwork and computer work in medicine today: endless forms to fill out, prescriptions to e-prescribe, medical records to input etc. It occurred to me that one solution to this problem would be to streamline and simplify our English language.
The great playwright, George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) suggested this very idea a number of years ago and several essays have already been published on this topic. So while my idea is not new, perhaps it is timely, given the mounting paperwork and bureaucracy inherent in 21st Century medicine.
There appears to be a lot of redundancy in the English language, especially in medical terms. Take, for example, the word “sick”. Why do we need both a “c” and a “k” in this word? Why not write it as “sik”? The letter “c” is totally unnecessary in the alphabet since the letter “k” and “s” will replace, respectively, a hard “c” and a soft “c”.
Think how much easier it would be for children to learn the alphabet if it were only 25 letters instead of 26. No more ABCs, just ABDs! I would also eliminate double letters in words such as illness. The word can simply be written as “ilnes”. Think how easy it would be to write “Cell 2 Soul Blog” as “Sel 2 Sol Blog”.
Another letter to eliminate would be “x” which can be replaced by other letters, e.g. “xerosis” (abnormal dryness of a body part) would become “zerosis”. Also the pronoun “you” can be simplified to “u” as is done in text messaging (e.g. “gr8 2 no u” means “great to know you”).
Putting all of the above together, the English language and medical paperwork would start to look more compact and elegant as follows: now u kan se eksaktly how nise the English language kan be when unesesary leters are iliminatid!
Best Wishes and Hapy Holidays 2 U!
Download An Esay on Unesesary Leters