"This may pinch a little"

[Joanne M. Despres]

Yes, I think what the nurse, doctor, etc. means by "pinch" is "to
cause a minor sharp pain," regardless of whether this is done by
squeezing, inserting a needle, or whatever.  This meaning does
represent a shift from the original one, but to me, it is neither a
surprising nor a nonsensical one -- in fact, it's been in my
vocabulary for a long time, and I'm surprised not to see it reflected
in my Collegiate!

Joanne Despres
Merriam-Webster

On 22 Jun 2005, at 12:15, Laurence Horn wrote:

> At 11:38 AM -0400 6/22/05, sagehen wrote:
> >  >I shall probably be chided for redundancy, but I have
> >>seen no comment on the trend over the past decade or so among medical
> >>personnel (phlebotomists, nurses, dentists, etc.) in the northeast to warn
> >>a patient of the imminent insertion of a hypodermic needle in the arm,
> >>gums, or
> >>elsewhere with the words, "This may pinch a little."
> >>Of course it isn't going to pinch, which means 'grip or seize between two
> >>fingers, jaws of a pair of pliers,' 'cause pain using a constricting
> >>force,' and the like: the proper word is prick, but that is avoided
> >>because it is the slang word for 'penis.' A more accurate euphemism might
> >>be stick, but I
> >>have never heard that.
> >>Perhaps observers in other parts of the US have encountered other euphemisms.
> >>I haven't checked every dictionary, but those newer
> >>ones I looked in do not cover this sense.
> >>L. Urdang
> >>Old Lyme, CT
> >~<~<~<~<~<~<~<
> >This is very much older than the past decade or so.  I heard it as a child
> >before WWII.  I assumed then that it was meant to liken the minor pain to
> >one that any child would be familiar with: that of being pinched.  Of
> >course it seemed increasingly absurd as I got older and kept hearing it
> >addressed to older & older adults (e.g., me).  "Prick" might well be
> >avoided for the reasons you give, but  "this'll hurt, but it'll be quick"
> >would serve the purpose.
> >A. Murie
>
> I'm not really sure that "prick" would be the appropriate verb, even
> in the absence of taboo avoidance, nor is "stick" really germane,
> since what the administrator of the hypodermic is really referring to
> here is not his/her action (which is indeed pricking, sticking,
> whatever) but its effect on the patient.  Of course the agent is
> pricking/sticking the patient, but the point is to assure the patient
> about the effect on him or her, so if "pinch" (or "sting") is a
> euphemism for anything, it's for "hurt", not for "prick".  If the
> doctor or whoever were to say "I'm going to pinch you a little",
> *that* might be more plausibly regarded as a euphemism for "prick",
> but "This may pinch a little" doesn't really seem to stand in for
> "This may prick a little", which seems a bit off semantically, even
> disregarding the taboo.
>
> Larry