Learning To Enunciate

Certain anatomical terms sound similar but have different meanings. In order to differentiate between abduction and adduction, doctors will frequently dictate:

Ab -- aay-bee-duction

or

Ad -- aay-dee-duction

Unfortunately, the "bee" and "dee" that they dictate in their effort to help the transcriptionist are often pronounced with enough similarity to confuse the transcriptionist. To make sure the correct word appears in print, dictate:

"Abduction. Operator, that's aay--bee--as--in--boy--duction."

or

"Adduction. Operator, that's aay-dee--as--in--dog--duction."

The same approach should be taken with words like regular and irregular, which can sound remarkably alike. When a patient has an irregular rhythm, dictate:

"Irregular. Operator, that's eye--are--regular rhythm."

The following clip from a production of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado shows a trio of actors with magnificent powers of enunciation.



Next: Speech Impediments

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