Quick and Dirty Tips

How To Cope With the Urge to Self-Harm
Why Is 'Chiropractic' Singular?
'Tom-ay-to' or 'Tom-ah-to'? How To Pronounce 'Tomato'
Ten Tips for Starting Your College Search

Posted: 01 Oct 2021 12:10 AM PDT

Have you ever wanted to bang your head on a wall and actually done it? Or secretly tried to cut away the pain of your existence? You're not alone. Acts like this are considered Nonsuicidal Self-Injury.

What is Nonsuicidal Self-Injury?

Nonsuicidal Self-Injury, or NSSI, is intentional, self-inflicted, low-lethality bodily harm of a socially unacceptable nature, performed to reduce and/or communicate psychological distress.

You might be thinking—"What the heck is socially acceptable self-injury?" As an example, some cultures engage in practices like scarification, which is considered to be socially acceptable.

It's also important to note that self-harm and suicidal behaviors are different. In suicide, the intent is to permanently end life and escape pain. In NSSI, the intent is typically relief from an unpleasant feeling (e.g. anger, emptiness, shame). NSSI is typically low-lethality, meaning that you would be unlikely to die from the injury; for example, shallow cuts on an inner thigh. However, there have been individuals who have hurt themselves more severely than intended.

NSSI is most common among adolescents and young adults, usually starting around age 13 or 14. Lifetime rates in these populations are about 15% to 20%. In both adolescents and adults, rates of NSSI are highest among those with a history of mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety, problems with emotion dysregulation, and distressing negative emotionality, particularly those with self-directed negative emotions and self-criticism.

A common myth is that women engage in this behavior more than men; the research shows that the rates of NSSI are actually equal. What appears to be different between men and women is the method used. Women are more likely to engage in cutting while men are more likely to engage in hitting or burning. NSSI is more common among LGBTQIA+ folks and White people are more likely than BIPOC to self injure.

Why and how do people self-injure?

Let's get deeper into the intention behind NSSI.

In contrast to suicidal behavior, the intent of the self-injuring person is not to terminate consciousness, but to modify it. The overwhelming majority of self-injuring individuals report that they harm themselves in order to relieve painful feelings like anger, shame or guilt, frustration, contempt, anxiety, tension, and panic. A smaller proportion of self-injurers report feeling too little emotion. They may state that they feel "empty," "like a zombie," "dead inside," or "like a robot." These individuals self-injure to provide relief for this absence of feeling.

The key point regarding intent is that a suicidal person wants to end their experience; a...

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Why Is 'Chiropractic' Singular?

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 03:28 PM PDT

Hi, Mignon. Long-time listener. First-time caller. I have been curious for a long time about the word 'chiropractic' because of how it's a noun like 'mathematics,' or 'physics,' or 'therapeutics,' but it's singular as a noun. I think it is singular, and that it is one of the few nouns that end in S and it's a singular noun. So I don't know. That's my question: Why is not 'chiropractics?'

It had never occurred to me that "chiropractic" is a singular noun, but you're right. The abbreviation "D.C." you see after a chiropractor's name stands for "doctor of chiropractic." Not "chiropractics" or "chiropractic medicine," but just "chiropractic."

According to Etymonline, the noun "chiropractic" was coined by Americans in 1899. It's a combination of two Greek roots: "chiro," which means "hand" and "pratikos," which means "practical." Chiropractors use their hands to manipulate your body, so the name makes sense.

And it is odd that it's singular. Aside from the fact that the second root, "pratikos," ends with an S, many other disciplines end with "-ics": physics, pediatrics, mathematics, linguistics, economics, ethics, and so on.

There are many nouns that end in just "-ic" too though. The Oxford English Dictionary highlights a few disciplines such as "music," "arithmetic," and "rhetoric."

Usually, these words we borrowed from Greek started out as adjectives, and you'll recognize the "-ic" suffix in adjectives like "diabolic," "sophomoric," and "platonic."

The most interesting point is that when these words moved from Greek to Latin, sometimes they were treated as singular and sometimes they were treated as plural. The OED says, "There was in medieval Latin considerable fluctuation in the grammatical treatment of these words." In Italian, Spanish, and German, they were "regularly treated as feminine singular." The same was true of French, but again according to the OED, "in French, from the 16th century, [they were sometimes treated] as plural (as in 'les mathématiques')."

In English, there's a dividing line in the middle of the 16th century. Before then, these kinds of words were generally treated as singular, and tended to be written like the French words: for example, "mathematique," "mechanique," and "economique."

But after the middle of the 16th century, some, including the names of sciences...

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'Tom-ay-to' or 'Tom-ah-to'? How To Pronounce 'Tomato'

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 03:10 PM PDT

In the world of great debates, there is one that has been long enduring and still keeps language prescriptivists awake at night: Is it "tom-ay-to" or "tom-ah-to"? Now, this may not seem as pressing as whether nuclear fusion is possible, but to people in the linguistic trenches, it is pretty darn close. After all, how many linguistic pronunciation ambiguities have been so long running and widely known that they have actually inspired a song?

So is it 'tom-ay-to' or 'tom-ah-to'?

To get to the bottom of the great tomato pronunciation debate, we have to go back —way past the Gershwins putting the ditty into the world.

'Tomato' was originally a Nahuatl word

According to linguist Jack Chambers, the fruit was brought over to Europe around 1500 by Spanish explorers who had developed a taste for it in the New World. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the original name—"tomatl"—came from Nahuatl, an Uto-Aztecan language spoken in parts of Mexico and Central America. Once across the pond, the word was nativized as it begun to be used by speakers of European languages, meaning adapted to fit the sound system of the borrowing language.

Europeans turned the Nahuatl word into 'tom-ah-to'

In Spanish, the name for these little beauties was "tomate" (pronounced "tom-ah-te"), based on the sound system of Spanish, which, like most Romance languages, used a long "a" vowel (pronounced "ah") which was the closest vowel sound to the one heard in the original Nahuatl word. This pronunciation was then adopted by the British, who used a similar "ah" vowel (sort of like we hear in the British-sounding pronunciation of "father"). So, this foreign loan-word nativization process would seem to argue that "tom-ah-to" is the accurate loan-word form, at least outside of the real McCoy, "tomatl."

The Americans turned the British word into 'tom-ay-to' (but the British used that pronunciation too)

Well, it's not quite so clear cut. American colonists, always a bit wayward, had also learned about and cultivated tomatoes but pronounced the word with a different vowel sound, the diphthongal [e] vowel (pronounced "ey" like in "hey"). According to socio-phonetician Charles Boberg's work on foreign loan word nativization, this "ey" pronunciation was actually a common pronunciation assigned to many foreign loan words spelled with a similar vowel, like "potato," that had been borrowed into English prior to 1500—before the Great...

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Ten Tips for Starting Your College Search

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 12:00 PM PDT

There's nothing quite like going to college. This is a major decision, and it is important to think carefully about which college you decide to choose. Whether you are going back to college or helping a child select an educational institution, it is important to think carefully about how you conduct the college search. This is going to have a major impact on not only the educational experience but also personal growth and development. What are a few tips to follow when it comes to the college search? Take a look at several key tips below.

1. Think about yourself first

During the college search, you need to think about yourself first. What this means is that you need to assess where you are at as a person. What do you like to do for fun? Who do you like to hang out with? Then, think about what you need in a college. What are the most important features? What do you want to do with your life? This will help you find the right college for you.

Remember that college is going to be what you make of it.

2. Talk to a counselor

It is also a good idea for you to talk to a professional counselor. For example, if you are still in school, there is probably a college counselor who can help you assess your options. Be sure to talk to this person to develop school recommendations. They may be able to put schools on your list that you may not have even thought about. It is always a good idea to have outside input.

3. Dream big

College is a time to dream big. Therefore, put yourself out there. Do not hesitate to shoot for the stars. Take a look at as many schools as possible, and see what you think your life might be like. If you dream as big as possible, you can find the best school for your needs. Remember that college is going to be what you make of it. What do you think life is going to be like? What do you think your fellow students will be like? Use your imagination.

4. Start early

It is never too early to start thinking about college. The earlier you start, the more options you will have time to assess. It is not unusual for people to start thinking about college during middle school, but you definitely need to start thinking about college by the time you reach your junior year.

If you are thinking about going back to school as an adult, give yourself more time to assess your options. Start as early as possible.

5. Think about cost and career

Even though money is not the only factor you need to consider, you certainly do not want to overlook it. You need to think about the cost of your education and how you are...

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Friday, October 1, 2021