Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Whew! What a Difference a Letter Makes!

I'm editing a transcript, and I come to this question: "Did you note any allogynia?" Huh?

Immediately afterward, I asked him to repeat the term, and he graciously did so, giving me the spelling along with it. A-L-L-O-G-Y-N-I-A.

Since I'm a fusspot, I Googled it anyway. I know that Google isn't the be-all-end-all resource for answers, but it's often a good starting point for things I'm not familiar with. I'm glad I used it in this case. Allogynia is defined as the need to fantasize about someone more desirable than your partner in order to... um... get the party started, if you know what I mean.

Well, hello. This case has nothing to do with that. It's about an amputee. I Googled it again as "neurogenic pain allogynia" and got one of those wonderful "Did you mean _____" responses. I love Google for this reason.

Allodynia: painful response to a usually non-painful stimulus.

Ahhh, that's better!

Now, I swear my audio says G and not D. At the time I wrote G and not D. G and D do sound alike. I was tempted to use allogynia with [sic]* afterward, but I'm thinking I heard it wrong (twice!!) since the doctor wasn't snickering at the question.

*For those who are unfamiliar, [sic] is used to follow a term or phrase that's inappropriately or erroneously used. It shows the reader that this is what the speaker said, and it is not an error in editing.

2 comments:

--V said...

Ah, [sic]! We use that in cataloging too -- show that the spelling error in the title (subtitle, author, etc.) is printed that way in the book. We're not allowed to fix it. We can put alternate titles and subject headings that are spelled correctly to get you there if you're searching the database for it and know how it's supposed to be spelled.

Anonymous said...

Hmmmm... that post was very educational. Titilating (I think that is spelled wrong, but I'm not checking, cause I'm lazy) vocabulary and a weird abbreviation previously unknown to me.