She may have a point. "Are you bipolar?" is a question about identity. "Do you have bipolar disorder?" is a question about a medical condition. Granted, if you ask someone if they are diabetic, they know what you mean. But people don't speak derisively of someone and say they are "so diabetic" and they do say someone is "so bipolar."
My dad is an immigrant and although he has been here since the late 50's, this sounds like something that he still might say. He is always misunderstanding questions, mispronouncing words in English, etc. He's always inadvertently making us laugh.
"It's how I show my support for Puerto Rican independence, since the first two letters of 'Libertad' are 'Li.' At first I thought of taking 'In' for 'Independencia,' but I couldn't find anyone to give me a prescription for indium."
Tend to agree with commenter whose father is an immigrant. My husband has lived in the US since the late 70s and is always making us laugh about inconsistencies of our English language, especially with word-order, pronouns, prepositions, colloquialisms, and parallelisms in proverbs such as 'beating around the bush', for which he might exhibit some confusion about avoidance of beating a bush to begin with. In his valiant attempts at sounding 'more American' he'll more often relate instances of incorrectly 'beating under a bush' or 'beating over the bush', or 'beating out a bush'. Well, that's not such a good example, because of double entendre associated with bushes. I was trying to think of another example of how a story got changed at his telling when he tries to incorporate some feature of American English, but many our our proverbial phrases have double-meanings, or can be used as puns. (No wonder, why there is so much cynicism in our language; a statement can be made quite a bit more ridiculous by altering the article of speech, from ambiguity to a different meaning altogether). That is why he took up the study of mathematics on arrival to the US despite it being his poorest subject 'back home'. There are rules in math that mean the same thing whether you're expressing them 'under', 'over', 'in', or 'out' of 'the influence'... On the other hand, I have to be rather proud of this man, in that he was the one in our family that practiced the Words of Champions (for spelling bee competitors) with our son who won his school spelling bee, and competed directly with the older sister (who won regional championships prior to her younger brother) for the national spelling championship a few years ago.
It's a valid question, though. Lithium is best known for treating bipolar disorder, but that's not the only thing it can be used for. I was suffering severe mood swings when my kids were younger, not to the degree of bipolarism, but enough so it was affecting my mental health. The nurse practitioner I saw put me on a very small dose of lithium carbonate for a couple years, and it really helped. Eventually I was able to go off of it (though I still need the setraline).
Back at pharmacy school, the p'cology instructor told our class the origin of medicinal lithium had to do with research correlating lithium levels in drinking water in populations that exhibited lower levels of certain types of manic behaviors, and used supportive data found associating highest water content of lithium in the drinking water in Cheyenne, Wyoming. I haven't found anything in writing to support this assertion about Cheyenne. I read an article about lower incidence of suicide in places in Japan with higher drinking water lithium levels. I would believe that all sorts of minerals are found in the water of Wyoming.
that's kind of adorable
ReplyDelete"For the last time, Turk. I'm Dominican"
ReplyDeleteMBee
She may have a point. "Are you bipolar?" is a question about identity. "Do you have bipolar disorder?" is a question about a medical condition. Granted, if you ask someone if they are diabetic, they know what you mean. But people don't speak derisively of someone and say they are "so diabetic" and they do say someone is "so bipolar."
ReplyDeleteLove your blog, btw.
I always get lithium and Lithuania mixed up.
ReplyDeleteI could see my mom doing that. However, it would be "no, I'm Italian". Probably would still get the same groan from the doc though. :)
ReplyDeleteMy dad is an immigrant and although he has been here since the late 50's, this sounds like something that he still might say. He is always misunderstanding questions, mispronouncing words in English, etc. He's always inadvertently making us laugh.
ReplyDelete"It's how I show my support for Puerto Rican independence, since the first two letters of 'Libertad' are 'Li.' At first I thought of taking 'In' for 'Independencia,' but I couldn't find anyone to give me a prescription for indium."
ReplyDelete"And I'll have you know that I've been degaussed."
ReplyDeleteI'll have one of those indiums on the rocks, please, with a little zinc pate on a cracker.
ReplyDeleteTend to agree with commenter whose father is an immigrant. My husband has lived in the US since the late 70s and is always making us laugh about inconsistencies of our English language, especially with word-order, pronouns, prepositions, colloquialisms, and parallelisms in proverbs such as 'beating around the bush', for which he might exhibit some confusion about avoidance of beating a bush to begin with. In his valiant attempts at sounding 'more American' he'll more often relate instances of incorrectly 'beating under a bush' or 'beating over the bush', or 'beating out a bush'. Well, that's not such a good example, because of double entendre associated with bushes. I was trying to think of another example of how a story got changed at his telling when he tries to incorporate some feature of American English, but many our our proverbial phrases have double-meanings, or can be used as puns. (No wonder, why there is so much cynicism in our language; a statement can be made quite a bit more ridiculous by altering the article of speech, from ambiguity to a different meaning altogether). That is why he took up the study of mathematics on arrival to the US despite it being his poorest subject 'back home'. There are rules in math that mean the same thing whether you're expressing them 'under', 'over', 'in', or 'out' of 'the influence'... On the other hand, I have to be rather proud of this man, in that he was the one in our family that practiced the Words of Champions (for spelling bee competitors) with our son who won his school spelling bee, and competed directly with the older sister (who won regional championships prior to her younger brother) for the national spelling championship a few years ago.
ReplyDeleteIt's a valid question, though. Lithium is best known for treating bipolar disorder, but that's not the only thing it can be used for. I was suffering severe mood swings when my kids were younger, not to the degree of bipolarism, but enough so it was affecting my mental health. The nurse practitioner I saw put me on a very small dose of lithium carbonate for a couple years, and it really helped. Eventually I was able to go off of it (though I still need the setraline).
ReplyDeleteBack at pharmacy school, the p'cology instructor told our class the origin of medicinal lithium had to do with research correlating lithium levels in drinking water in populations that exhibited lower levels of certain types of manic behaviors, and used supportive data found associating highest water content of lithium in the drinking water in Cheyenne, Wyoming. I haven't found anything in writing to support this assertion about Cheyenne. I read an article about lower incidence of suicide in places in Japan with higher drinking water lithium levels. I would believe that all sorts of minerals are found in the water of Wyoming.
ReplyDeleteI have never laughed so hard in my life!
ReplyDelete