h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Doctors like to use Latin names when they refer to parts of the body. The main reason for this is so they can discuss various treatments between themselves while you're lying there, but without frightening you.

So if you hear medics saying, "I suggest we realign the patient's clavicles, then perform a plastic procedure on the left pinna", you'll know (eventually) that they're planning operations on your collar bones and ear. But can you identify these ten parts of the body they might refer to, all of which have very common names?

1. Axilla
2. Bucca
3. Costa
4. Coxa
5. Crus
6. Cubitum
7. Frons
8. Hallux
9. Mentum
10. Naris

Guess all ten, then I'll score them up later. You'll score some points if you get within 12 inches of the correct answer, so don't leave any blanks.

Incidentally, this works well as a party game - write the Latin names on stickers, and have players apply them to a partner's body.

As ever, if you'd rather Google these, please don't post your search results here.

Icy

Here are my guesses:

1. Axilla = upper lip under nose
2. Bucca = mouth
3. Costa = rib
4. Coxa = base of spine
5. Crus = joint between spine and skull
6. Cubitum = forearm
7. Frons = forehead
8. Hallux = big toe
9. Mentum = skin on stomach
10. Naris = fingernails

Here go zero points...

1. Axilla = armpit
2. Bucca = mouth
3. Costa = rib cage
4. Coxa = male reproductive organ
5. Crus = knee
6. Cubitum = Belly
7. Frons = forehead
8. Hallux = Throat
9. Mentum = Place between shoulder blades where you cannot reach when it itches, however hard you try
10. Naris = Bellybutton

Zero? Still fun to do...

Leave this to Gnomon, is my policy. It does open up the "marks for imaginative wrong answers" sub-competition, though. Here goes:

1. Axilla -- hatchet-wielding Japanese movie monster
2. Bucca -- banjo
3. Costa -- holiday destination
4. Coxa -- first choice for rowing race guide
5. Crus -- a New Zealander called Chris
6. Cubitum -- Spongebob Squarepants
7. Frons -- leafy fringes
8. Hallux -- halls
9. Mentum -- male phantom pregnancy
10. Naris -- counterpart to bosun

Though by comparison to Spanish, I'd expect Narix to be a nostril.

1. Axilla = part of a plant where bud emerges from a stem
2. Bucca = shinbone, from Osso Buco
3. Costa = Mary Costa, who sang the part of Sleeping beauty for Disnwey
4. Coxa = bone in the spine
5. Crus = pat of body that seems to belong to a crustacean
6. Cubitum = some part of body that is square
7. Frons = brother of Hons (Hons and Frons)
8. Hallux = part of digestive system, which is big enough that there must be part of it with this name
9. Mentum = skin, in general. Integumentum can be the skin around an organ, or the covering of the hole body
10. Naris = nostril (from Nare)

Apropos 'naris' and Spanish...you made me think of Antonio Banderas the allergic Bee:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrUF3JzD9P4

Right now, osso buco doesn't sound like a bad idea.

I'm late to the party and am only posting because I can finally do so after many days not being able to (things have changed a little at work and I can't get on line there, was away last week, blah blah ... various other excuses)

English uses loads of Latin terms anyway - I have heard doctors mumbling away when I'm half anaesthetised, using the Latin words which are quite comprehensible to an English speaker. German is far more prosaic. E.g. - Conjunctivitis - Bindehautentzündung. Stomatitis - Mundfäule (sounds as nasty as it is).

Anyway. Belly button is probably umbelico or something.

1. Axilla - One of the vertebrae in your neck is Axis. So this is not that. My hunch: somewhere in the ankle?
2. Bucca - mouth? But maybe some other orifice? (You did say they were *common* words!)
3. Costa - Gotta be rib, as in the French "côte"
4. Coxa -
5. Crus - Now, a cross is "crux", (where do we have a cross shape in our bodies? - maybe a muscle that works in two directions?)
6. Cubitum - forearm is likely. Wasn't that the basis of the Roman unit of length the "Cubit"?
7. Frons - French for forehead is "front" so I'm with everyone else on this one.
8. Hallux - Resisting the temptation to think of the breath ("halitosis" only has one "l") and irresistibly reminded of Harry Potter and the "Horcrux", .... I dunno. Wrist? Ear?
9. Mentum - Now, French is no help here because we are reminded of "menton" which is the chin, but the chinbone is the "mandible". Could it be something to do with the brain? - "Mens" is "the mind" - right?
10. Naris - definitely nostril.

My Latin teacher husband has just left for his class reunion, (he took his Abitur in 1968) so I can't ask him. The above waffling is the result of my uneducated addled mind.

And now I can't get this song out of my head (starts about 1 min 40 in

http://youtu.be/_BLJgh76h3k

Medical German is, indeed, awesome. I will never forget how mad my ophthalmologist was at me when I knew the word 'Astigmatismus' but not 'Hornhautverkrümmung'. I, on the other hand, was baffled that he was talking to me about callouses...

Be grateful that he wasn't singing about Maria Callous.

You say we shouldn't leave any out so I may as well have a stab at No 4. As others have said, it's possibly at the bottom of the spine. There is more than one vertebra in the coccyx, so it could be that. Maybe that is even the derivation of the 'cox' in a rowing team. A case of the tail wagging the dog!

Cox (coxswain) derives from ‘cock’ (Middle English ‘cok’) meaning a small ship’s boat


Any more takers for this quiz?

I prefer to do the rowing and let someone else do the coxing. That, or coach beginning teams

Ah, so cox and bosun mean (or once meant) the same thing?

I’ll score up tomorrow.

In the meantime, here’s a photo in need of a caption: A87912237

(Post suggestions there, please)

I think I should know more of these, but out of context I'm struggling... I'll give it a go, though, just for fun!

1. Axilla - armpit
2. Bucca - hip
3. Costa - rib
4. Coxa - knee
5. Crus - ankle
6. Cubitum - forearm
7. Frons - toes
8. Hallux - throat
9. Mentum - stomach
10. Naris - nose

Close but not quite. Swain means lover of. the spelling has also been corrupted 'sun' Nautical speak is a spoken, not written language. A Cockswain (Coxsun) are in charge of one of the small boats of the ship. The Bosun (or boatswain) is in charge of the deck equipment needed to sail the ship (in the old days this included sails and spars). We must not think about the modern separation of 'boat' and 'ship'

F S

OK, let's score this

The correct answers are:

1. Axilla = Armpit
2. Bucca = Cheek
3. Costa = Rib
4. Coxa = Hip
5. Crus = Leg
6. Cubitum = Elbow
7. Frons = Forehead
8. Hallux = Big Toe
9. Mentum = Chin
10. Naris = Nostril

I've scored it as 'correct' = 5 points, 'adjacent' = 3 points, 'close but not adjacent' = 1 point.

Scores are:

Gnomon 22
Caiman 22
TC 23
Sasha 16

Congratulations, TC!

Interestingly, the adjective for Mentum is 'Mental' (chin-related).