Arnold Zwicky's Blog

Caught in a television commercial for a medical supply firm:

I’m so tired of boiling every time I have to cath. (link to Flickr version)

That’s cath, a clipping of catheterize ‘use a catheter’. Both the full and the clipped version can be used transitively and intransitively (OED2 lists both uses for catheterize in its entry for catheterism). Here’s a transitive use of cath:

Our dog recently became paraplegic and we now have to cath him 3-4 times daily. (link)

The clipping provides a one-syllable version for a four-syllable technical term. It might also work to distance a speaker or writer from direct reference to catheters and the unpleasant business of catheterization.

This entry was posted on April 15, 2009 at 3:33 pm and is filed under Words. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.