ob-gyn revisited

[Victor Steinbok]

The Rachel Maddow Show and blog do this one better--they suggest trying
out different combinations of letters on the VA site for vanity license
plates. One they are particularly proud of is an old recycled headline:
"OMGYN".

FWIW, I agree with the proposed origin. For one, the standard
designation used to be "ob/gyn", with "ob" always sounded out as if it
were an initialism. Over time, I've seen both "ob-gyn" and "OBGYN", with
all three variants either in all caps or in some combination of upper
and lower case. And [abgaIn]  and [abd3In] sound as if they might be
British or Australian acronyms--I've never heard them in the US (with
admittedly limited experience, but still...). And even the full "OBGYN"
version is still often abbreviated to just "O.B.".

On the other hand, Departments of Ear, Nose and Throat can often be
heard referred to as "ent" or "E.N.T.". Other abbreviations/initialism
are often pronounced as separate letters--e.g., "O.R.", "E.M.T.",
"I.C.U." (sorry, can't recall more than that on request--need to think
more about that). But I've heard longer examples pronounced as words
rather than initials. It could be that OBGYN is just short enough to
fall into the former class.

     VS-)

On 3/30/2012 5:29 PM, Neal Whitman wrote:
> Back in 2002, there was a short thread on "ob-gyn", which ended with =
> this message:
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=3Dind0208D&L=3DADS-L&P=3DR=
> 7926&I=3D-3&X=3D75F2A46774E24B9CDC&Y=3Dnwhitman%40ameritech.net&d=3DNo+Ma=
> tch%3BMatch%3BMatches
>
> In the thread, pronunciations such as [abgaIn] and [abd3In] were =
> discussed, as well as the quasi-acronymic "O-B-jin" and "O-B-G-Y-N". I'm =
> wondering if anyone else has regional or diachronic pronunciation data =
> to throw into the mix. The OED only lists the [abgaIn]-like =
> pronunciations, which I have never heard (though some in the 2002 thread =
> had), while AHD lists only the full "oh-bee-jee-wye-en" pronunciation.=20
>
> I'm just wondering how this pronunciation came about. I speculate that =
> it started with plain "O-B" for "obstetrician" (a little like "ID" for =
> "identification", except that the B is in coda rather than onset =
> position), and then "G-Y-N" came along by attraction.
>
> And slightly OT (not OB), I liked the episode of Everybody Loves Raymond =
> where Doris mentioned an O-B-G-Y-N and Frank got angry at perceived =
> patronization: "You don't have to spell it out for me!"
>
> Neal Whitman
> Email: nwhitman at ameritech.net
> Blog: http://literalminded.wordpress.com

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