conuly | I recently had the chance to see a CDC sign about, among other things, how to

Don (put on) PPE and doff (take off) said PPE.

Parentheses are theirs, not mine - I'm of the firm belief that if you have to define your term immediately after using it, you're better off not using it on an informational poster to begin with. I'm sure they have some reason they had to do that, but I'm equally sure that reason was not as good a reason as they think.

However, my primary thought, after criticizing their editorial decisions here, is that I really want to inform whoever made that poster that, etymologically speaking, "don" is "do on" and "doff" is "do off", because English phrasal verbs, including those using vagueisms like "do", "make", "put", and "take", are apparently a deeply inbuilt feature of our language.

This fact wouldn't improve their signage nor anybody's comprehension, but I still want to tell them. Barring that, I'm telling all of you.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

pauamma

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=106. Also:
- Why does Don feel put on? (And who's inflicting that put-on on them?)
- Who is Doff, and why did they say "PPE"? (Yes, I know "said" is anaphoric here. It's still stilted and obscure.)

From:

mtbc

Cool, thank you. I like to keep that sort of term alive but hadn't known their origin.

From:

james

This is exactly the sort of rant I am here for. *pom poms*

From:

conuly

I look up etymologies for fun, but in *this* case I found that out because I was looking up more information on the history of English phrasal verbs.

From:

lilysea

Look, I like obscure oldfashioned language as much as the next person (and A LOT MORE than many people)

but the place for it is jokes on twitter, fanfic, and cartoons

NOT LIFESAVING PUBLIC HEALTH POSTERS WHICH SHOULD BE UNDERSTANDABLE BY
a) people who didn't finish high school;
b) people who aren't fluent in English;
c) people with intellectual disabilities

From:

sabotabby

Yes this drives me batty. Use words that people understand. I had the same problem with synchronous and asynchronous in education, but at least that only destroyed the school system rather than exposing people to a deadly virus.

From:

conuly

In this case I think the intended audience is nurses and other healthcare workers who at least should have finished high school, not have any disabilities that would preclude them from working with patients, and, in a place where most/all of their colleagues and patients speak English, be at least passably fluent and functionally literate in English.

It's the last part that's the sticking point, though, because those terms aren't that common, and I can see an immigrant nurse being unfamiliar with them. I would hope that this hypothetical person already knows correct procedure... but I also hope that doctors don't need reminders to wash their hands, and we all already know they do, so. I'd also hope that this hypothetical nurse can guess from context, but I'll refer myself back to handwashing.

Either way, it's bad writing. If the CDC, quite reasonably, thinks its intended audience might not be immediately familiar with those words then they should never have used those terms in the first place.

Edited Date: 2022-05-29 01:55 pm (UTC)

From:

conuly

It'd actually be less annoying to me if they'd used the terms and not clarified. If you know you have to clarify, and there's no particular advantage to using those particular terms, then don't use them to start with! Parentheticals make your writing less readable, and that should never be the goal in an informational poster. Target the lowest possible reading ability.

From:

conuly

I said PPE. The sign might have as well, or they might have used some other term. Since the sign is for healthcare workers it makes sense to use their jargon, right up until they realize they've gone too far and used jargon the workers might not know.

From:

ioplokon

I would suspect it's to conform with other documentation (which is why they define them, too, so people understand when they encounter it elsewhere), but I'm just guessing of course. obviously it's not great.

From:

chelseagirl

For some reason the constant use of "don" in historical fiction of all subgenres always sets my teeth on edge.

From:

malada

My brother's name is Don. I stagger to my computer from a bad night sleep and wonder why you are talking about my brother?

:=D

-m

From:

readerjane

LOL. I am happy to be a proxy tell-ee.

From:

suchasnack

I'm ESL and I have to admit that I had to read that first sentence a few times to figure it out. I had already heard the word "don", but "doff" is completely new to me. I'm fascinated by the etymology behind these two verbs!

Hi *waves* I'm a random passer-by, I found this post as I was reading my Network page.

From:

brokenallbroken

I suspect the first person to write copy for the sign was trying to make a mnemonic or jingle ("don and doff" being both alliterative and having a pleasing rhythm), and then someone with more of a grasp on average American vocabulary realized that was dumb, but office politics meant they couldn't nuke the phrase entirely.

From:

low_delta

if you have to define your term immediately after using it, you're better off not using it
I agree!

Was this on a sign that showed how to do so, or were those the only words. If the former, then the instructions (written or visual) would have been the needed clarification, and people would have learned new words.

From:

conuly

Well, you're welcome to stay!

From:

conuly

I should take a picture, because I'm sure that's not the backstory. I have a more than sneaking suspicion that this is The Accepted Jargon Term for these actions, and the parenthetical is the only concession to the fact that some healthcare workers possibly don't know the jargon, most likely because they got their training in some other language that they speak better than English.

From:

conuly

Visuals, and further written instructions anyway.

I agree with the CDC that people shouldn't be learning via context when they're also getting an important reminder on how to do a life-saving work-related task. I just don't think that parentheses are helpful in that.

From:

conuly

Does it now? Huh.

From:

conuly

I agree that seems the likely reason.

From:

suchasnack

Thank you! *happily subscribes*

From:

mindstalk

Yet it's claimed to go back to the 1300s. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/doff

From:

chelseagirl

Oh, I never claimed it was inaccurate. I have an irrational dislike for the term -- I think because it's something no one says, but everyone writes.

From:

conuly

People must have said it at one point in the past if it persisted long enough to evolve from "do on/off" to "don/doff". I wonder when usage tapered off....

From:

brokenallbroken

Also plausible! Yes, medicine is a field with lots of ESL.

From:

lilly_c

I work in social care in Scotland and NHS Grampian had donning and doffing PPE posters which we had on display in the service, I assumed they were Doric words for putting on and taking off but I can't find anything to confirm that though. There was also a short online training through them or my employer for how to do it correctly which was a video and quiz at the end.

From:

offcntr

They really aren't in common use, are they?

Nowadays, we only doff our hats (and don we now our gay apparel).

From:

conuly

Wait, we don it NOW? It's a little late for Yule and a little early for Pride.

From:

offcntr

Hey, it's been a rough pandemic. Trying it on to see if it still fits.

From:

silveradept

Don and doff are also the terms used for laypeople when it comes to non-pandemic PPE, and our instructions expect us to understand what they mean from context. Which still doesn't make it good writing, but probably those parenthesis are there because someone had a go at making it more accessible and came up with that.

Interesting that English has "do on" and "do off" as well as the other phrasal verbs.

From:

cimorene

They've always struck me as cute, but it never occurred to me that that was their origin! That makes it seem even more cute, but not in a way where they should be on public health informational posters: they're quaint because they're somewhat antiquated.

Also it reminds me of the housekeeper in Father Ted always saying "Go on" (or "gwan" really - "gwon"?) when urging people to have a cup of tea.

From:

flemmings

Cf Ophelia's 'dupped' in Hamlet.

Then up he rose and donned his clothes And dupped the chamber door

'Do up' and 'do on' were evidently shortened in common speech by 1600. Unless dupped was one of Will's many many neologisms.

From:

conuly

Shakespeare didn't make quite as many words as people tend to claim he did.

First of all, even when a word really *is* first recorded in print in his works, that's in print. Terms often float around in speech before somebody puts them in a play or sonnet.

Secondly, many of his claimed neologisms are really just old forms in new ways - verbing a noun or the other way around.

But most importantly, a lot of them are considered "the first citation" not because they are but because people like to see citations from authors they recognize, and so they look for citations from authors they recognize, and so Something From Shakespeare makes the dictionary in a way that Something From Some Dude's Personal Letter A Year Earlier doesn't - both because that's what readers prefer and also because that's what lexicocographers prefer (and, incidentally, that's also easier to find).