How's that again?

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:48 PM -0500 9/28/09, Dave Hause wrote:
>I hear it, gratingly, with some frequency in the hospital.  Part of the
>jargon I would call "nurse-ese" with another unfavorite of "ambulate"
>instead of the simple "walk."

And it's more defensible than "ambulate" because it couldn't really
be replaced by e.g. "tried", or any other simple verb I can think of.
It's a bit like "adminstrate", which even the late Bill Safire
semi-approved of because it's not quite pre-empted by "administer".
So while it may not be great, it wouldn't grate for me to hear
"trialled for" in this context rather than, say, "tested in a trial
for".  "Ambulate" is more like "conversate"; not clear what it's
giving us that we didn't have before.

LH

>Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net
>Waynesville, MO
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>
>",,, a drug that is being _trialled_ for insomnia ..."
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org