The Wide World of Woke

Courtesy of the UK’s Daily Mail we read of yet another example of the Wide World of Woke: “New push to RENAME body parts like the Adam’s apple and Achilles’ tendon because they are ‘irrelevant and misogynistic.’” 

Because of the Daily Mail coverage, this bizarre tale of one “council member for the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians” and her goofy itch to jigger the medical nomenclature of body parts has received a lot of attention. Is there anything of major moment, here?

Well, the doctor doesn’t like the fact that embedded in medical terminology are semantic artifacts of past, less woke times.

“The word ‘hysterectomy,’” explains reporter Lauren Ferri, “originated from a time when women were treated for female hysteria by removing the uterus.” Adding that the good doctor “now prefers to use the term ‘uterectomy’ instead.”

To treat hysteria now we prescribe masks or marches.

But our doctor Down Under is not alone. Apparently woke medical folk around the world have many, many concerns:

• Adam’s apple — Biblical*
• The speculum — apparently named after a slave trader
• The Pfannensteil incision — named after the male doctor who developed it
• The Achilles tendon — named after the mythical hero who, as an infant, was dipped into the River Styx

The article mentions but does not link to “American researchers [who have] published a report reviewing 700 anatomical and histological eponyms and found that only one was named after a woman.”

All this no doubt seems trivial and unimportant — right up until we remember Orwell’s warning about those who wish to rule over language and to erase the past.

Like destroying monuments and altering history books: it should not be decided by a woke few.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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* The lore mentioned in the article is quite extra-biblical, and not worth repeating.

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Photograph of the statue of Death of Achilles.

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