groin

[Dan Goncharoff]

I would have described the muscle as being in the inner thigh, but
attached to the pelvis. Another way of saying the same thing, although
the distinction can be important when relief requires applying ice to
the injured area...

DanG

On 5/10/2010 10:31 AM, Alice Faber wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Alice Faber<faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU>
> Organization: Haskins Laboratories
> Subject:      Re: groin
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On 5/10/10 10:20 AM, Charles Doyle wrote:
>
>> In the sports section of yesterday's newspaper, an Atlanta Braves outfielder was said to be suffering from an injury to his "left groin." The phrasing immediately moved me to wonder, "How many does his have?" I certainly would have said the "left side of his groin."
>>
>> Evidently, however (judging from the OED attestations of the noun), in the 16th century and earlier one could have multiple groins . . . .
>>
>>
> In sports-injury-speak, a groin injury is an injury to a lower-abdominal
> muscle or tendon, so the left or right business would refer to which
> side of the pelvis the injured muscle attaches to. (/anatomical handwaving)
>
> What lay observers like us would normally think of as a groin injury is,
> instead, referred to more descriptively as "a (nearly-)ruptured
> testicle". See
> <http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/Video-Sami-Salo-reportedly-suffers-ruptured-tes?urn=nhl,239744>
> for current examples.
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