Author Topic: Fistula and fistulae common?  (Read 1179 times)

Jacki

  • Cryptoverbalist
  • *
  • Posts: 963
    • View Profile
Fistula and fistulae common?
« on: May 31, 2020, 09:22:59 AM »
In Saturday's Challenge game with FACULTIES as the seed word I had a long battle trying and failing to get a rosette! I love a challenge and was keen to see what I missed. Now I know lots will say they're familiar with this word and its plural however I'm not sure I've even heard of it let alone it passing the pub test. 
I don't even know if I've seen it before in Chihuahua. I vote fistula and fistulae gets reclassified from common to rare.
Late blooming azaleas tricked by the warmer weather into flowering

mkenuk

  • Eulexic
  • ***
  • Posts: 2671
  • Life? Don't talk to me about life.
    • View Profile
Re: Fistula and fistulae common?
« Reply #1 on: May 31, 2020, 10:27:03 AM »
I'm inclined to agree with you, Jacki.
I have seen the word before [probably in a crossword]. I vaguely knew it was something to do with medicine and surgery, but like so many similar terms I would not have been able to explain to a class of 16-18 year-old students exactly what it was. [That is my personal test of whether I am 'familiar with' a word or not.]

Any Chi solver with a background or training in medicine or nursing  will almost certainly consider it common, but what percentage of us is that? At a guess, between 10%-15%.

Probably not an ideal topic for breakfast time, but while checking fistula on Wikipedia I came across a reference to perineal fistula.
Hand on heart, how many Chi solvers who don't have a medical background could say exactly where their perineum is?

This word too is common on Chi and in fact appeared in a fairly recent game.



Jacki

  • Cryptoverbalist
  • *
  • Posts: 963
    • View Profile
Re: Fistula and fistulae common?
« Reply #2 on: May 31, 2020, 12:40:30 PM »
I know about perineums cause of childbirth. So maybe it's more common for childbearing women. Not so for fistula/fistulae.
Late blooming azaleas tricked by the warmer weather into flowering

mkenuk

  • Eulexic
  • ***
  • Posts: 2671
  • Life? Don't talk to me about life.
    • View Profile
Re: Fistula and fistulae common?
« Reply #3 on: May 31, 2020, 12:58:57 PM »
That's probably true, although men of course also have a perineum!

The word actually appeared in a 10-letter game [imprudence ]a few weeks ago. On that occasion it was played by 28 from 312 [less than 10%].
The only reason I can remember this is that I made a note to query the word's common status on the forum, but I never got round to it.
I think it was about the same time that I was having problems accessing Chi on my desktop PC.

Katzmeow

  • Logologist
  • **
  • Posts: 84
    • View Profile
Re: Fistula and fistulae common?
« Reply #4 on: May 31, 2020, 01:07:32 PM »
Well I got fistula but not fistulae.  But then I also didn't get faculties  :-R
I don't have any medical training but I've heard of fistula in relation to childbirth, and perineum in that context.  I do know where  mine is  :laugh:
My truth may not be your truth.  That makes neither of us right or wrong, only different.

Jacki

  • Cryptoverbalist
  • *
  • Posts: 963
    • View Profile
Re: Fistula and fistulae common?
« Reply #5 on: May 31, 2020, 02:52:13 PM »
Well that gave me a sorely needed laugh!
Late blooming azaleas tricked by the warmer weather into flowering

Calilasseia

  • Cryptoverbalist
  • *
  • Posts: 522
  • Pass the dissection kit ...
    • View Profile
Re: Fistula and fistulae common?
« Reply #6 on: June 16, 2020, 02:54:47 PM »
Though of course, anyone enduring one won't be laughing ... :)
Remember: if the world's bees disappear, we become extinct with them ...

yelnats

  • Cryptoverbalist
  • *
  • Posts: 750
    • View Profile
    • Burke Rd billabong reserve & Friends of Herring Island
Re: Fistula and fistulae common?
« Reply #7 on: June 17, 2020, 09:15:57 AM »
Many Australians and New Zealanders will know fistula(s) from the work of Catherine Hamlin in Ethiopia...

https://hamlin.org.au/

birdy

  • Eulexic
  • ***
  • Posts: 3370
  • Brooklyn, NY
    • View Profile
Re: Fistula and fistulae common?
« Reply #8 on: June 19, 2020, 06:16:20 AM »
I don't remember seeing the word on a regular basis, but since I had one for over 30 years, I certainly know the word well.  In spite of two surgeries, I had a constant oral abscess, which, to the amazement of everyone who heard about it, never bothered me.  The abscess kept getting infected, but since there was a fistula, it drained, and never built up pressure to cause pain. So they are not always bad.

TRex

  • Eulexic
  • ***
  • Posts: 2038
  • ~50 miles from Chicago, in the Corn (maize) Belt
    • View Profile
Re: Fistula and fistulae common?
« Reply #9 on: June 19, 2020, 09:45:39 AM »
I'm very familiar with the singular form because my much better half was born with a tracheoesophageal fistula which necessitated a cross-country flight to undergo an operation at the age of four days. I got the word, she did not. And when I read out fistula, she let out a hoot and expressed dismay at having missed it. (I guessed at the plural form.)

Alan W

  • Administrator
  • Eulexic
  • *****
  • Posts: 4961
  • Melbourne, Australia
    • View Profile
    • Email
Re: Fistula and fistulae common?
« Reply #10 on: September 15, 2020, 09:53:36 PM »
It's an easy decision to make the plural fistulae rare. It's used much less often than fistulas, and mainly in academic publications. But what of the singular word fistula?

As the comments indicate, the word is known to quite a few people for various reasons. However many others evidently are unfamiliar with the term.

One type of fistula, the obstetric fistula, is an injury that can occur during childbirth, usually resulting in a stillborn child and a severe lifelong affliction for the mother. This problem has been largely eliminated in Western countries, but is all too prevalent in some poorer countries. The website yelnats linked to is run by an Australian based charity working to eliminate the problem in Ethiopia.

So it would seem likely that the word would be more frequently used in some countries than others. This is borne out clearly by the News on the Web corpus. This corpus collects massive quantities of text from English-language news media in many different countries. This shows that the most frequent occurrences of fistula and its plurals, per million words of text, are in Tanzania, Nigeria, Kenya, Bangladesh, Ghana and Pakistan, in that order. Usage in the US, UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand is much less frequent.

It seems to me that fistula should also be treated as a rare word from now on.
Alan Walker
Creator of Lexigame websites