Translation of 'Mustard spoon' ?

[Allison Elena N.]

May be the following can throw some light on why in certain kinds of
documents mixing weight and volume is a norm.

According to NIH guidelines, medical documents created with the purpose to
explain to patients the details of medical procedures should be written in
such a way that they could be understood by people without medical education
or without much education. They suggest that the reading skill level of a
6th-grader is the target to bear in mind when one is writing such a
document. Due to this, many "informed consent" documents in English contain
such phrases as "30 mg (approximately one tablespoonful) of blood will be
taken out of a vein in your arm."

But since your original document is in Russian, I wonder what kind of
document it is (that is, who wrote/ordered it, and for what purpose). Or are
you, Donald, by any chance, doing a "back translation" for QC purposes -- a
procedure that some translation agencies have in place?

Thanks,
Elena 

Elena Levintova Allison 
(831) 643-0181
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Slavic & East European Languages and Literature list
[mailto:SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU] On Behalf Of Donald Loewen
Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 6:02 PM
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Translation of 'Mustard spoon' ?

Thanks to all for your responses -- it must be a slow day on SEELANGS if 
obscure measuring implements dominate the discussion!  I do appreciate 
the clarifications, since none of my traditional sources for answers to 
this type of question could help.  In this instance the spoon is being 
used to measure some kind of traditional herbal medicine (i.e. dried but 
not powdered), with the choice being to measure out ca. 20 mg. or 1/4 of 
a gorchichnaia lozhka, so it seems they're mixing weight and volume.  
Thankfully it's not anything that I have to take, or provide specific 
dosage for!
With best wishes to all,
Don Loewen
>> tion of "gorchichnaia lozhka,"  a
>> term that seems to be used to measure tiny qualities of medicines?
>> (one-quarter of these seems to be about 1/100th of a teaspoon!)
>> Thanks for any help, onlist or off.
>> Don Loewen
>>     
>
> Provisional answer:
>
> I would refer to the item as "mustard spoonful" (gorchichnaya lozhechka).
> I'm not sure of its use in medicine, but in cooking I believe it may be
200
> milligrams. Cf. that with "travyanaya lozhechka" = 50 milligrams. Could
the
> measures be the same in medicine?
>
> I stress the provisional nature of this reply.
>
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