Ardith Hinton wrote to James Bradley, "Rules...  2Aii." on 07-31-05 01:50

 AH> Hi again, James!  Re who else posted this evening, see
 AH> ENGLISH_TUTOR....  :-)))

I'm not sure, but I don't think my NEC caries the echo.

 AH>  "thrombocytopenia".  Be careful what you wish for.
 JB>  All I can fathom, is it must throb.


 AH>         Close, but no horseshoe!  "Thrombo-" has to do
with clotting...

L!!! Well, I wasn't playing with hand grenades.

 AH> you may have seen it used in terms like "coronary thrombosis",
 AH> commonly known as "heart attack".  "Cytopenia" is a
 AH> deficiency of one or more types of blood cells, e.g. in
 AH> leukemia where the proliferation of white blood cells may
 AH> be so extreme that other blood cells (including those
 AH> needed for normal clotting) are crowded out. Pain in the
 AH> joints is symptomatic, but AFAIK it's not a throbbing
 AH> pain....  :-/

Sounds like it should be named hipothrombosis cytopenia, in that it is
a *lack* of clotting ability.  But what do I know? <-: 


 AH>         Yes, there can be a bewildering variety of common
 AH> names... and the same common name is often applied to
 AH> different things in different places.  :-)

So I've read. I find it most interesting when there's a poignant point
to the nature of the biology described in the name. EG: Terrible
lizard, ocealis, prunis...



 JB>  beneficial parasite that feeds..."


 AH>         It seems the days when reporters specialized are
 AH> long gone.  I see many articles in which an issue is
 AH> clouded by attempts to simplify it too... (sigh).

What are you gonna do? Obviously, technical elements need to be
simplified, and your average audience will be glossed oven by the time
a symposium starts...


 JB>  That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. LOL!

 AH>         Another expression which Dallas & I also use, BTW... [grin].

L! Ya, it gets good mileage here too.

 JB>  

 AH>         Like a fish out of water, eh?  Nice use of metaphor....  :-)

Honest injun... I haven't a clue what we were talking about. I'll take
the compliment however, and thank you. (-:


 JB>  What is a half an umlaut, now that we are on the target?


 AH>         You mean a single dot placed over a letter??  I
 AH> don't know.  Apart from the letter "i", of course, I've
 AH> seen it only in dictionaries as a pronunciation symbol
 AH> indicating a short vowel.  There's a circle over a capital
 AH> letter "A" in my ASCII chart (ALT 143).  I wonder which
 AH> language uses it... Ukrainian, maybe?

Maybe I saw it in the dictionary pronunciation.  

 JB>  How about the French typical apostrophe that sits
 JB>  above an "e" like an umlaut.


 AH>         If it looks like a peaked roof, as in "table
 AH> d'hote" (ALT 147), it is a circumflex.  If it looks like

Ow... You're good! I forget now how to display those high ASCII
 codes. Do you hold the  key, while entering the number? I tried
 that with this Linux, and it only inserted blank spaces.


 AH> half of a circumflex and goes upward from left to right, as
 AH> in "nee" (ALT 130), it's an acute accent.  If it looks like
 AH> half of a circumflex and goes downward from left to right,
 AH> as in "tres" and in "blessed", (ALT 138) it's a grave
 AH> accent.  I notice we're both using IBMPC 2, BTW....  ;-)

Wow... I couldn't tell you if I *was* using IBMPC 2, or *not*. How the
Dickens's Pub can you tell from there? Sheesh... I'm outa my league!



 JB>  I'd *like* to know what I'm talking about, but so much is
 JB>  forgotten as soon as I learn it these days. 


 AH>         I can relate.  Stress takes its toll... I noticed that when I was

...And I just learnt REM sleep is critical in retention. Something I
only get in spurts.

 AH> in my twenties!  When one gets older there's so much stuff
 AH> inside one's brain that it may be difficult to retrieve
 AH> sometimes as well.  I suspect you do remember what is
 AH> important to your personal survival, though.  When Nora was

I suspect you are right again. 

Another thing that is evident in recall, is forgetting things that are
not critical to a person. Imagine if we could quote everything that
was ever said to us in a lifetime. There'd be no room for anything
else! 

 AH> in treatment for leukemia I often forgot what the
 AH> grownups... who were quite capable of fetching various
 AH> items for themselves... had asked for.  But I never forgot
 AH> to give Nora her medications on time as prescribed, because
 AH> her life depended on it....  :-)

You had your focus, and the heck with the rest. You were being a good
mother, and let the others, who *can* fend for themselves, get their
own damn salt and pepper. (-;

 JB>  I'll stay to keep an eye on ya! 


 AH>         Delighted to hear it!!  You're doing fine.  Hang in
 AH> there... [chuckle].

Oh, how I wish you were right all the time. I'm having one of *those*
days today. Aspirin is not touching the situation, and I've at least
doubled my intake of it. /-:

Ah, tomorrow may be better.



... James
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