Strange Medical Exam

[PaulB]

England and North America really are separated by a common language, aren't they? Unlike Hans, English is my mother tongue and still I had to look up the definition of 'swinge' (BTW, Firefox flags it as a spelling error). I particularly liked the quote from the New Statesman of 16 May 2010 "... Look at the word on its own: swingeing. It doesn't seem quite right, does it? In fact, it looks like I've just spelled swinging wrong. ..."

[viking33]

I learn something new here every day. English not being my mother tongue, I had to look up "swinge". Now I'm happy to know that the Swinge is the strait between Alderney and Burhou in the Channel Islands...

From AudioEnglish.net

Dictionary entry overview: What does swingeing mean?

• SWINGEING (adjective)
The adjective SWINGEING has 1 sense:

1. severe; punishingly bad

Familiarity information: SWINGEING used as an adjective is very rare.

Dictionary entry details

• SWINGEING (adjective)

Sense 1 swingeing [BACK TO TOP]

Meaning:

Severe; punishingly bad

Context examples:

swingeing taxation / swingeing damages awarded by the judge

Similar:

bad (having undesirable or negative qualities)

Domain region:

Britain; GB; Great Britain; U.K.; UK; United Kingdom; United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (a monarchy in northwestern Europe occupying most of the British Isles; divided into England and Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland)

[ I like the clarification of the Domain region. I didn't know that! ]

[HansV]

Thanks - I was being facetious, I had of course also found the definition of swingeing that you mention.

[viking33]

Thanks - I was being facetious,

( So was I )

[Argus]

I learn something new here every day. English not being my mother tongue, I had to look up ...

I spoke French a long time ago, but my mother used soap, and nowadays I don't understand a word.

[Bowlie]

No, I think it is Schwingen, the Swiss national sport!

[BigKev]

Thanks - I was being facetious, I had of course also found the definition of swingeing that you mention.

Facetious is one of two words in the English language with all the vowels in order and occurring only once.

I know, I should get a life.

[Bowlie]

I know, I should get a life

Me too, but (according to Wiki) ...

There are many words that feature all five regular vowels occurring only once in alphabetical order, the most common being abstemious and facetious. Two of the shortest, at eight letters, are caesious and anemious (OED); and aerious (OED) has only seven letters. Some others are abstentious, acheilous, arsenious, arterious, tragedious, fracedinous, and Gadsprecious (all in OED). Considering y as a vowel, the suffix -ly can be added to a number of these words; thus the shortest word containing six unique vowels in alphabetical order is aeriously, with nine letters (OED); the much more common facetiously has eleven letters.

[BobH]

As Leif says, I was noting how here in the UK we often complain about the National Health Service, usually because we feel because it lacks 'service'. However, unlike the just about all of the rest of the world it is 'free'. By that I mean we don't have to pay an clearly defined upfront figure out of our pay every month and by and large it doesn't matter who you are, everyone gets the same treatment, the cost is all hidden in our taxes.

Thus we don't know how fortunate we are, we are carried around safe in our little womb with all our needs provided for. We're not living in the real world, we don't know we are born.

Ken

Methinks the truer expression - wrt NH - is, "We don't know we are borne."