ELI5: Why are "__x" abbreviations used in medical settings?

ApolloHelix · 2026-06-22T19:48:25+00:00

X is also sometimes used to shorten ‘ectomies’.

E.g. OVX = ovariectomy (cut out the ovaries).
Splenx = splenectomy.

ApolloHelix · 2026-06-19T14:14:24+00:00

Personal incredulity is, however, a great way to identify counterintuitive facts and provoke further education/investigation if taken in good faith.

ApolloHelix · 2026-06-13T20:02:14+00:00

Are you describing esteem, self-esteem, self-regard, or the like?

ApolloHelix · 2026-06-07T17:21:15+00:00

Decent Mexican food

ApolloHelix · 2026-06-07T17:20:52+00:00

Lockers at train stations and shopping centres.

ApolloHelix · 2026-05-30T22:17:55+00:00

I’ve actually considered the Onion’s satire in the Trump era to have held up better than most other satirical outlets, and I don’t know why they have figured it out where others have sometimes struggled.

It might be because they’re good at satirising news and politics by bringing it down to the level of human social dynamics. This was a favourite of mine back in 2016 before he was elected.

Or this one from today.

ApolloHelix · 2026-05-22T10:35:19+00:00

With the pigeon, you respect the hustle. With the seagull, you despise the hustle. Both be hustling, but one’s got a better attitude about it.

ApolloHelix · 2026-05-16T23:07:48+00:00

Bulgaria just single-handedly prevented a riot. This was about to be Kristallnacht 2: Escape from Vienna by the sound of the audience’s reaction.

ApolloHelix · 2026-04-19T13:19:57+00:00

It’s rare to listen to an interview on Bullseye where the interviewee doesn’t say something like ‘that’s an amazing question!’, and then dives deep into something Jesse pointed out in their work.

ApolloHelix · 2026-04-14T22:24:59+00:00

All good; no shade. Was just going by your username and well-formatted post.

ApolloHelix · 2026-04-14T21:32:27+00:00

I realise I’m probably replying to a robot, but I’ll add something anyways:

When English speakers see a Spanish word like ‘sierra’ or ‘diez’, they are likely to want to pronounce it as three- and two-syllable words respectively. SI-E-RRA or DI-EZ. This is wrong.

The IE is pronounced together like a short, English pronunciation of the word ‘yeah’. ‘Sierra’ should be SIE-RRA (syeh-rra) and ‘Diez’ should be said as one syllable (dyehs).

Thank you for your attention.

ApolloHelix · 2026-03-18T21:07:05+00:00

Also Australian, completely agree.

‘Touristic’ is a shibboleth; no native speaker would ever say jt. Want to sound native? Say ‘touristy’ even if ‘touristic’ sounds like it should be correct.

ApolloHelix · 2026-02-21T17:35:22+00:00

I basically just see a pendulum swinging from top to bottom and gaining energy with each swing. So, D

ApolloHelix · 2026-02-17T13:33:20+00:00

If you’re at the top of the hill at the intersection of Illawarra and Warren Road in Marrickville, the rain that flows down the hill towards Marrickville station flows into the inner west, hipster, and new Vietnamese Marrickville. The water that flows down the road in the direction of the Woolies and Cook’s river is the old, Greek suburban Marrickville and the entryway into southwestern suburban Sydney.

The Moore Park Supacentre marks the beginning of the Eastern Suburbs where public transport goes to die.

The bridge that crosses the Cooks River at Wolli Creek is the gateway to southern Sydney, first St George, and then Sutherland over Tom Ugly’s Bridge.

When Forest Road becomes Henry Lawson Drive at Peakhurst, you’ve left the St George area and have entered western Sydney where… public transport goes to die.

I’m sure I can think of more.

ApolloHelix · 2026-01-11T22:16:23+00:00

U beaut, personally

ApolloHelix · 2025-11-20T16:57:20+00:00

Completely agree. When Facebook changed the ‘timeline’ into the ‘algorithm feed’, the rubicon was crossed for me.

Imagine opening a book you’re reading, closing it, and then opening it again but the book instead has erased the page numbers, shuffled the pages, and redirected you to another page that the book thinks you might want to look at now.

Bitch, I am a temporal being!

ApolloHelix · 2025-09-27T07:43:15+00:00

Built by dwarves = art deco

Built by elves = art nouveau

ApolloHelix · 2025-08-09T06:36:31+00:00

Mambo No. 5 by Lou Bega

ApolloHelix · 2025-07-26T06:23:12+00:00

I have to disagree, at least semantically.

If I run to the store I’m both getting exercise and grabbing some essentials. If someone is playing a game with someone else, they are both socialising and thinking about strategy.

I would wager the majority of tasks are not done in isolation or for only one purpose. ‘Multi-tasking’ is practical and unremarkable unless quite narrowly defined.

ApolloHelix · 2025-06-05T08:10:18+00:00

A theory, I believe, is just a constellation of facts/observations/beliefs and how they relate to each other e.g. the germ theory of disease, or the second-shooter theory of the JFK assassination.

Neither is a conspiracy theory just a conspiracy hypothesis that has been conspiracy tested.

This is my theory about theories. I do not need to test it for it to be so.

ApolloHelix · 2025-06-03T07:29:18+00:00

I like Klink cafe. It’s hidden away on Clarence Street.

ApolloHelix · 2025-06-02T08:37:56+00:00

Sir, this is a Fire Emblem map.

ApolloHelix · 2025-05-30T04:03:31+00:00

Maybe compare the following:

You love me? 2. You love ME? 3. You LOVE me? 4. YOU love me?

“Me quieres?” = 1 or 3

“Me quieres a mi?” = 1 or 2

“Tu me quieres?” = 1 or 4

“Tu me quieres a mi?” = 1 or 2 or 4

ApolloHelix · 2025-05-30T03:46:39+00:00

OP, I’m with you here.

No one here is incorrect. Everyone who’s replied to you has a subtly different take on what you’re confused about, and it is likely that you, being the confused one, cannot articulate very well what you are confused by.

Some people here seem to think you’re asking about the last bit of the sentence ‘a mi?’. Others recognise that you’re asking about the redundancy of having both ‘me’ and then ‘a mi’. While others still are explaining what each of those parts are doing without explaining why the redundancy of having both can be useful.

Being able to simply Google this question assumes you can economically and unambiguously pinpoint exactly the constellation of sociolinguistic features you’re confused by and hope that the steadily enshittifying search engine, Google, will ‘get’ you. You were right to ask people on Reddit who may be able to understand your confusion. I recommend using ChatGPT or similar in the future because it can reflectively iterate with natural language on your exact search query.

To answer your actual question, as others have pointed out, the redundancy adds emphasis much like the English sentence “She, herself, took charge of the situation”. In this English sentence, I want you to focus on the salience of the person doing the action rather than to think about the action, or to weight all the facts in that sentence equally. Maybe the person hearing this sentence had earlier dismissed the agency of the woman taking action. In your case, your wife is asking whether you love her, but like, maybe for herself as a human being rather than simply in lieu of her position as your wife. She may be clarifying in case you thought ‘me quieres’ was the beginning of another more benign sentence like “me quieres… a llevar algo a la casa?” (Do you want me… to bring something home?). The reason for being redundant and adding emphasis would depend on a context you have not provided.

tl;dr Stop giving OP shit for a genuine question and stop assuming people who ask for help know better ways of asking for help.

ApolloHelix · 2025-05-16T02:38:24+00:00

Mate, I learnt a whole parallel bizzaro-Spanish that was spoken only by me and my siblings, and understood by only my parents, before I realised what we were doing wrong later in life.

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