Sunday

PG-13 Vocabulary Lesson

This morning on the way to church (me with the kids -- Troy already there for singing practice) we passed a billboard about a local hospital and it said something about 'mammography' -- 'excellence in mammography'? I don't know.

That word cracked Riley up (10 year old boy). "WHAT is mammography??? The study of mammoths??" (No, that is NOT where I'm going with this...)

Never passing up a linguistics lesson, I said, "Well, let's go back to the root ... mammary. (Oh, indeed, there is MUCH rolling of the eyes from Ashley -- 12 year old girl) Mammary glands are what cause women to be able to produce milk. And women need a mammogram to be sure they (I did explain what 'they' are but won't elaborate here -- I get weird enough googles on my blog...) are healthy."

At this point, I start thinking about explaining the word 'mammogram'. And all I can think of is 'telegram' -- sending a message over telephone wires -- or 'candy-gram' -- sending a message with candy. So, it would seem reasonable to me that a 'mammogram' would be sending a message using the mammary glands (or the anatomy that houses them). AND I got so tickled I couldn't continue my academic discussion of the word mammary.

I would like to make a motion that we change the name to 'mammoscan'!

3 comments:

Tammy M. said...

That reminds me of Big Fat Greek Wedding, I guess the word Mammory comes from the greeks?

Troy M. Stirman said...

"It, ah, comes from the Guh-reek word, Mammagrophis, which, we know, means- 'large breasted'."

Roxanne said...

Well. . .if Riley MUST know, you can direct him to my blog where I discussed my very own b**bages squeaking. You just gotta laugh at the thought of a literal mammogram. . .possibly SINGING mammograms???? There is plenty of money to be made. . .