[Lexicog] missing word

[Ron Moe]

This was a fun little exercise in analysis. What you are describing is a
scenario. You are looking for a word that refers to a particular aspect of
that scenario. The scenario has the following features:

1. Scenario: medical practice; sub-scenario: diagnosis of disease
2. Something bad happens to someone's body [e.g. disease, sickness, injury]
3. Something causes something to happen [e.g. (a disease) produces
(symptoms)] (or conversely:)
4. To show/indicate something [e.g. be a symptom of, be an indication of,
indicates]
5. To mentally combine thoughts [e.g. combine, relate, take together]
6. A group of things [e.g. cluster, combination (of symptoms/observations)]
7. To analyze/solve a problem [e.g. diagnose]
8. To find out something that is not known [e.g. leads (us) to believe]

Unfortunately I can't think of a single word that means 'a group of
symptoms/observations that can be analyzed to indicate that they are caused
by a particular disease'. However each of the above features is a semantic
domain containing a number of words. So we need to look in each of the
domains for single words that can be used in combination. We would then pick
those words that best fit the context/scenario and collocate/fit together. I
can suggest the following wordings:

The combination of symptoms leads us to believe that one diagnosis is most
likely out of the several possible diagnoses.
The cluster of sypmtoms...
The combination of these indicators...
These indicators all point to...
Taken together the symptoms suggest...
The pattern is suggestive of...
The combined weight of these indicators point toward...
The combination of these symptoms forms a syndrome, leading to a diagnosis
of...
These symptoms are typical of (such and such) syndrome, which is caused
by...

Of course the only person who can really tell us how to say this is a
medical doctor who would probably say something like:

Alternative diagnoses are contraindicated by the cooccurrence of the fundus
retracted through the subxiphoid port and the proximal cystic
pneumoperitoneum.

All of which taken together indicates a diagnosis of collective ignorance
rather than memory loss or lack of fluency.

Ron Moe

-----Original Message-----
From: Wayne Leman [mailto:wayne_leman at sil.org]
Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2004 8:10 AM
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Lexicog] missing word


My wife and I are having a senior moment (which has lasted for a day or
longer!). We are trying to remember a certain English word which refers to
the way that a list of medical symptoms groups together so that a specific
diagnosis is quite likely. We have checked thesauri and our own mental
databanks and come up with the following synonyms, but we are still missing
the word itself. Perhaps one or more of you can come up with the word we
sense that we are missing.

Synonyms:

complex, coalesce, conspire, congregate, confluence, conflux, group, union,
set, junction, syndrome, complex

The missing word should fit in the following sentence:

"The ______ of symptoms leads us to believe that one diagnosis is most
likely out of the several possible diagnoses."

The word "complex" seems most likely right now, but I'm not getting that
"Euraka!" feeling about it that I usually get when having one of these
vocabulary senior moments and then the word pops into mind.

Thank you,
Wayne
-----
Wayne Leman
Cheyenne website: http://www.geocities.com/cheyenne_language





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