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Cake day: June 1st, 2024

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  • Dachau? No, it never became an extermination camp. Hell, I visited the memorial site and know about its history to some extent (though certainly far less than actual historians).

    It killed tens of thousands still, especially in the later parts of WW2. But its purpose was still to concentrate enemies of the state and not to exterminate them.




  • Germany.

    8 patients per room is really the upper legal limit (as anything more is considered intolerable) and exceedingly rare but having at least one other patient in the same room is the default. Even if single rooms are available, hospitals prefer to put you into rooms with other people as they offer single patient rooms for ~120€/day and dual patient rooms for ~70€/day.

    When I was in the hospital for a pretty severe gastrointestinal infection as a child, I had one bed neighbor with a severe cough which I obviously caught after the stay. It wasn’t as severe but pretty annoying nonetheless.

    TVs generally exist for free but usually only one per room so you’ll have to negotiate with your roommates. WiFi, if existant, definitely costs money and will have early 2000’s speed.

    In general, hospital stays have roughly the same standard as in the 70’s or 80’s as there hasn’t been noteworthy investment ever since. Anything considered a luxury and unnecessary for treatment will likely not be provided for free.









  • To be fair, the atom names are literally just German. Except sunstuff, that’s Helium in German too. Not too difficult to parse imo but I may be biased.

    But it’s not like I want all French influence be gone. Rather, for common things it feels… artificial(?) to use some fancy Latin word when it just refers to something so basic it shouldn’t have a Latin word outside of scientific contexts to begin with.

    It’s like a science fiction novel where the author insists on naming the Earth Terra, the Moon Luna and the Sun Sol. It feels needlessly artificial and somewhat clinical.



  • Wasn’t English’s French influence mostly over by this point? The Norman conquest added a bunch of French vocabulary but by the 1700’s, England was a stable colonial power.

    And for very frequently used terms - like anatomical terms - the English root remained mostly intact and loanwords weren’t used. Arm, nose, shoulder, knee, elbow etc. are not French in origin.

    I suspect it could be remnant of nobility separating itself from the common people. By only ever referring to anything with its Latin term, you can distinguish the wealthy, highly-educated from the poorer, lesser-educated people. After all, if you spoke Latin and/or Greek those terms make a lot of intuitive sense.


  • This doesn’t apply to most other fields though.

    In physics, only the abbreviations are (mostly) the same internationally. But the full terms are always translated into languages, despite being equally as technical.

    In math, no terms are international - only the specification of formulas is standardized.

    Music is the exception but their field belonged to elitist pricks for most of history tbf.

    Art (painting) uses translated terms everywhere from what I can tell. There are no translated terms for paints, canvas type, style, periods etc.

    History certainly doesn’t use international terms either. Medieval, stone age, bronze age, modern age etc. are all translated into each language.

    Amd frankly, I don’t see why anatomy has to use international terms whatsoever while other fields can use translated terms without any issue.


  • Partially. In German, the term eye doctor has first been recorded in 1401 (ougenarzt) (according to Wikipedia).

    The 1700’s made enormous medical progress - but it’s not like people prior to that had no need for specialized doctors. For example, according to etymonline the term “dentist” was first used in 1759. You can’t tell me dentists didn’t exist for many centuries prior to that and didn’t have an “English-derived”, self-explanatory term. I mean, I never knew “dent” was Latin for tooth until reading the etymology just now.


  • Optometrists/opticians aren’t doctors over here though. They belong to the trades. This field doesn’t exist in Germany the same way it does in the US/Britain:

    Optometric tasks are performed by ophthalmologists and professionally trained and certified opticians.

    Wikipedia

    Eye doctors does actually refer to ophthalmologist though, I picked the “wrong” translation which ignores the differing legal frameworks. Looking back, I certainly went to the full blown ophthalmologist just for optometric purposes.


  • I don’t have an issue with using scientific names in scientific contexts if you intend to publish something international researchers should be able to parse. But just like maths, there is no problem in just… translating names? Imagine if you had to phrase sentences like: “The numerus realis make up a copia infinita.” You’d have to translate Latin every time new studens would be taught because most mathematical terms convey a decent amount of information.

    What I do have an issue with is using these terms anywhere outside of international contexts.

    A doctor should not tell their patient they have a “humerus” fracture. In German they would take about the upper arm bone.

    Or imagine if a doctor told you there is an infection in your digitus pedis. Fortunately English didn’t replace the term “toes” with its scientific one… YET.

    Hell, I could even apply this to doctor names in English which require a dictionary for anyone trying to parse them. I had to look up half of them by the way.

    Children’s Doctor <> Pediatrician

    Women’s Doctor <> Gynecologist

    Tooth Doctor <> Dentist (the least bad in my opinion - at least it’s short)

    Eye Doctor <> Optometrist

    Neck-Nose-Ear Doctor <> Otorhinolaryngologist (wtf???)

    Skin Doctor <> Dermatologist

    Like, surely there must have been (native) English terms for those doctors in the past. It’s not like the medical field popped into existence in the 1700’s. You can’t tell me a 15th century English peasent used Latin/Greek derived names for common specialized doctors.