Doctor Slang

During my recent trip to Birmingham, I was talking with someone about the funny slang that doctors use to describe patients. Fark linked to just such a story today.

A patient who is “giving the O-sign” is very sick, lying with his mouth open. This is followed by the “Q-sign” — when the tongue hangs out of the mouth — when the patient becomes terminal.

General practitioners may use LOBNH (“Lights On But Nobody Home”) or the impressively bogus Oligoneuronal to mean someone who is thick.

But they also have a somewhat poetic option: “Pumpkin positive”, referring to the idea that the person’s brain is so tiny that a penlight shone into his mouth will make his empty head gleam like a Halloween pumpkin.

Here’s another story on Dr. Fox from the Beeb and one from Ananova. A horribly-formatted page of slang terms is here.