34 comments:
Janibach said...
I'm British in America. My children's paediatrician says "belly" but apart from when discussing babies or dogs, I haven't heard any of my new England friends use the word. The word doesn't sit well with me because when I was a child (in the 60s) it was considered a 'rude' word, like 'bum'. In fact when I was very young I thought 'belly' was another word for 'willy' which was also a forbidden word. (For the record, my mother taught us to call the belly-button by its proper name from the start.)
If my doctor asked to look at my belly, I wouldn't be surprised, because doctors here often use 'common' names for body parts and bodily functions but I might be slightly affronted at the use of what I would perceive as a childish word to refer to my abdomen.
30 October, 2010 14:34
When I was a little kid (mid to late 90's, NYC), I remember my doctor asking me to show her either my stomach or my tummy--but never my belly. Now as an adult (still in NYC), I think doctors have higher expectations, as I've only been asked to show my abdomen.
30 October, 2010 14:41
I'm interested in the aspect of the compounding of nouns - I've recently been quite addicted to the Facebook version of Boggle, which I often fail to get a good score in because of the number of compound nouns that it allows, thus I'm inferring that it allows the American usages. I tend to sniff at many of them, being British and considering that many of them are in fact two word terms and would be described as such in crossword puzzles over here. And there seems to be no particular rule to what gets compounded and what doesn't. Can any American user shed more light on this?
30 October, 2010 14:47
@Janibach: What's the "proper name" for belly-button that you were taught?
30 October, 2010 14:58
"Oh, stop your bellyachin'." That's a term I've heard here in upstate NY for "stop complain'!" And the navel is a/k/a the belly button.
Whereas, in Los Angeles, the well-to-do can get a tummy tuck to remove a bit of the gut.
I asked my six y.o. old daughter what SHE called her midsection, and she said stomach or belly or tummy.
30 October, 2010 15:13
I'm on a train and away from my dictionaries, so forgive me for not checking myself, but does AHD really prefer potbelly for contexts other than the attributive - e.g. potbelly stove, as opposed to "that guy has a pot belly"?
30 October, 2010 16:13
I think of belly as something more used when talking to children though I wouldn't think twice if a doctor asked me to show them my belly. I would be more used to the word stomach. I think that in this case the word stomach is appropriate and actually has two meanings. Since I can't show the doctor my internal stomach, then I will be showing my abdomen and understand that I have more than the internal stomach in that area. I don't assume that belly has a "paunch" meaning when I hear or use it. I would say "beer belly" or "pot belly" to get across that idea since for me belly doesn't have to have that meaning. I am from Tennessee.
30 October, 2010 16:45
American (Pacific NW), and I wouldn't think much of it if a doctor asked to see my belly. It would sound a little informal, but it's perfectly understandable to me that an MD might be hesitant to use the word "stomach" to mean abdomen.
If they asked to see my tummy, I wouldn't necessarily think much of it, but I would notice it. I'd also be tempted to reply, "Are you a doctor or a pediatrician?"
The connotation of belly specifically meaning a round belly hadn't really occurred to me before. I suppose, now that I think about it, I might agree that it's slightly less likely that a doctor would use the term "belly" with an unfamiliar female patient.
I'm also reminded of the rock group Belly from the early 1990s. As I recall, the lead singer picked the name because it was a word that was simultaneously
pretty and ugly.30 October, 2010 17:25
Grew up in southern US, now in the Midwest. I say "belly" and would never let "tummy" out of my mouth. It's a lot like Mama/Mommy for me -- most people in my region prefer "Mommy," but I am exclusively "Mama." I should say that I think "tummy" is more prevalent than "belly" in the Midwest, but that might just be because it grates on me and so I notice it more!
30 October, 2010 17:45
I (BrE) wouldn't be particularly surprised to hear a doctor use any of the terms but I'd most naturally say stomach. Beer belly and tummy tuck sound natural from their alliteration.
I do remember at primary school a teacher telling us never to tell her we had belly-ache but to say tummy-ache instead (or was it stomach-ache? This was early seventies so my memory isn't perfect). I'm struggling to remember her specific reason, but I have a feeling she saw belly as baby talk. Given that we would have been about 8 at the time sounding childish would have been pretty reasonable.
30 October, 2010 19:07
When I was a small boy sixty years ago, belly, tummy and stomach were synonymous. Belly was the vulgar word that my mother taught me never to say. My father would sometimes refer jocularly to a Darby Kelly. Tummy was somehow more polite than stomach — although the latter was acceptable (and, I think, accurate) when discussing ulcers.
I suspect that your 70 figure for British use of stomach, belly, tummy reflects the fact that, like me, many have been conditioned to see belly as vulgar and tummy as childish. Belly is twice as common as tummy because a touch of vulgarity is not always seen as a bad thing.
30 October, 2010 19:14
"Belly" was very rude to my grandparents' and parents' generation (BrE - Sussex; grandparents born in 1890s, parents in 1920s); by the time I came along in the 1950s it still wasn't used much - one said "tummy" - but had lost its power to shock. Our equivalent, I think, was "arse"....
I would expect the doctor to ask me to show my tummy or my stomach; not, I think, my belly. Actually, I'd expect him or her to say "Let's have a look, then", rather than be specific....
30 October, 2010 19:36
Huh. My doctor (accent is west coast American but I've never asked where he is from) says "Do you have pain in your abdomen?" If he were to say "Belly" I wouldn't think anything of it, but if he said "tummy" I'd definitely give him some snark. Of course, I've gone in moaning "My guts hurt!!" (meaning intestines) so I guess I can't talk! (I'm from So. California originally)
30 October, 2010 20:48
I think my grandmother (BrE born 1920s, Sussex) would find 'belly' to be rather rude. Not sure about my mum. It doesn't seem rude to me but it does sound odd, and it does sound more American to me. I certainly would never use it myself outside of the context of 'belly-button' or 'beer belly'.
30 October, 2010 22:23
Of course! I'd forgotten. Michael Flanders (1922-1975) wrote:
Ma's out, Pa's out-let's talk rude:
Pee - Po - Belly - Bum - Drawers!
30 October, 2010 23:04
Australian here...
I say "belly-button" but "tummy ache". I wouldn't be surprised if a doctor asked to see either my tummy or my belly or my abdomen.
If I'm at the doctor I describe my pain as being in my abdomen, but I've been to a lot of doctors to talk about abdominal pain so that's probably why.
31 October, 2010 00:14
I'm British and I'm pretty sure that I've never heard "tummy button". Could that be a baby word? If so, I might have heard it but forgotten...
31 October, 2010 00:43
My father, a GP in the Southern US, often uses 'belly' to talk to patients about the abdomen, regardless of the size & shape; he would only use 'tummy' with children. I do hear other people around here say belly occasionally but for adults I'd say the most common word would be stomach.
31 October, 2010 01:21
My (BrE, South Welsh, Wiltshire and Liverpool in the main, plus Yorkshire recently) expectation would be belly-button or navel. (My academic background is biomedical sciences so correct terms for everything are pretty much automatic for me personally.)
I don't think I've ever had to see a doctor with abdominal problems, but anything from guts, tummy, belly, stomach to abdomen wouldn't really surprise me not offend me. I guess guts is more likely to be mid to lower abdomen, stomach upper abdomen, even when in quadrants more suited to being over the liver than over the stomach!
31 October, 2010 01:27
I think of "gut" as intestine, or more informally internal organs. i would never describe a tummy tuck as removing some gut(s).
It is news to me (NE US, age 56) that "belly" is vulgar.
31 October, 2010 02:20
I would be interested in how the corpora compare for "belly(-)ache". To me (southern BrE), "belly" is vulgar in BrE (and, I would have assumed, possibly non-vulgar but still slang in AmE) but "belly(-)ache" is pure AmE.
Until today, my guess would have been that "belly(-)ache" would only appear in BrE writing in conscious imitation of AmE (and then, mostly, in "stop your bellyaching"). This discussion suggests that "belly" (and, hence, "belly(-)ache") may have become more normal in BrE with younger people.
31 October, 2010 11:24
I'm usually in parallel with your senses, Lynne, because I grew up near you (though a couple of decades earlier) in central NY. But for me, "belly" doesn't carry the paunch sense. It's slightly informal, though, and I wouldn't expect it from my doctor--but he knows I'm cognizant of medical terminology, and we communicate on that level.
01 November, 2010 06:36
BrE (London) and vastly aged: I have "stomach" as the word I'd use; "tummy" as the word I'd use to a child; "belly" as rather coarse. In practice I would expect a doctor to steer clear of words I might misunderstand and say things like "And is the pain here?" either indicating his/her own anatomy or (more likely) pointing at me as though I were something on a butcher's slab.
01 November, 2010 11:52
A childhood (girl) friend of mine in the late 1950s thought, like Janibach, that 'belly' meant the male organ, presumably because it was then treated as a rude word in middle England.
Kate (Derby, UK)
01 November, 2010 12:48
AmE. Midwest. Abdomen, stomach, belly, and tummy all mean the same thing to me, except that abdomen is clinical, stomach is formal, belly less so, and tummy sounds childish. I would expect my doctor to refer to my abdomen or stomach, perhaps my belly, but not my tummy if I were over the age of 12. Belly does not carry the rounded or paunchy meaning for me. I'm fascinated to learn that belly used to be considered rude in certain areas.
01 November, 2010 18:41
@ Carin: "I'm on a train and away from my dictionaries, so forgive me for not checking myself, but does AHD really prefer potbelly for contexts other than the attributive - e.g. potbelly stove, as opposed to "that guy has a pot belly"?"
As far as I understand the rules about hyphenating compound adjectives the option you describe isn't possible at all. It would either be 'He has a potbelly' and 'potbelly stove' if written as one word or'He has a pot belly' and 'a pot-belly stove'.
01 November, 2010 19:17
In California... it's a belly button and a tummy ache. I've only ever heard a doctor ask about abdomens (even the pediatricians).
01 November, 2010 20:11
I think I'd say tummy by default and abdomen if I were trying to be formal. During my recent pregnancy the midwife always asked to feel my "tummy". (BrE, southern England)
02 November, 2010 15:11
In the fifties my mother taught me a rhyme which seemed quite odd to me even then - depending as it did on the daring vulgarity of using the word belly at all:
Mary ate cake and Mary ate jelly.
Mary went home with a pain in her...
Now don't get excited
Now don't be misled
For Mary went home with a pain in her head.Atlantis.seeker, Canada
02 November, 2010 15:58
@ B&j - my grandmother taught me the same rhyme in the 1950s, and it wasn't until I went to boarding-school in the 1960s and learnt a similar verse (Up in the mountains, high in the grass, down came an elephant, sliding on his ****) that I realised what the point was!
02 November, 2010 17:20
Have we all forgotten about "midsection"?
03 November, 2010 04:15
I was surprised when I learned, many years ago now but still during the Internet era, that there exist British people (quite a lot, actually) who consider "navel" the standard term and "belly button" infantile.
For me (Australian with a few childhood years in Britain), "navel" is a technical term, "belly button" the only option in normal conversation, and "tummy button" for use with young children (only because I remember my parents using it).
04 November, 2010 09:16
@ Outerhoard - yes, I (BrE) certainly think "belly-button" or "tummy-hole" (which is what I called is as a child) are childish terms, and would refer to my navel.
04 November, 2010 16:36
My wife's an English GP working in Sussex (AmE: family doctor/physician) and she says she'd normally avoid having to specify the area by saying "May I examine you now?", the patient having already stated the general location of the problem.
However, if necessary, she'd most often use "tummy", but might use "belly" to a child, reflecting local usage. With patients who'd understand it (e.g. those with a history of abdominal problems) she'd use "abdomen". She might also sometimes use "stomach", despite the clash with its anatomical meaning.
For the umbilicus, she'd use "tummy-button".
As for other anatomical terms, such as the plethora of alternatives to the locally-common "front bottom", she says it's best not to go there.
05 November, 2010 17:11
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