Medical Words and Organ Systems

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1. The prefix, suffix, root and the combined form are used in medical terminologies. Prefixes are used before the word and can be used to modify or alter the meaning of the word. An example of the same is anti- which means against like in the word antibacterial meaning it reacts against bacteria. Suffixes are used at the end of the root words and are syllables or a group of syllables that can be used to change the meaning of a word or come up with a whole new word. An example is –rrhea which means discharge or flow and used in medical words such as diarrhea. Roots are the elements from which other words are formed. They act as the foundation of a word that conveys a certain meaning. Combining Forms are mostly vowels that are used to join word root to a second root or another suffix ("Medical Vocabulary," n.d.).

2. Phonetically spelled pronunciation of medical terminologies is much easier while using a guide such as medical dictionaries. The guides help in learning how to pronounce words, certain vowels and show the vowels that are prolonged and those that are not. Accent marks are used as an indicator of the stressor found on vocabularies related to medicine. Primary accent is denoted by a single mark (‘) and used on syllables that have the strongest stress. The secondary accent is denoted by double mark (‘') and shows syllables that are stressed less than the primary syllables. Diacritics are also used to show whether vowels have a short or a long sound A good example of such is Macron (-) that show the long sound of a vowel, Breve (~) that show the short sound of vowel and Schwa that shows central vowel sound ("Medical Vocabulary," n.d.).

Some of the words that are mispronounced include Cecum which most people pronounce as secum, dehydrated which people pronounced as dehydrinated and dilated which people might pronounce as delighted. All the above have different meanings when pronounced and puts the health of a patient at risk since their interpretation might lead to long conclusions and wrong treatment decisions.