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Apr 10, 2014 08:18
10 yrs ago
3 viewers *
English term

indefinite article with NICU

English Medical Medical (general)
This is a small point, but I'd like to get it right. I'm using the term NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) in a translation, and I'm not sure if it should be "a NICU" or "an NICU".

The former, "a NICU", is more common, and is used, for example, in the Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonatal_intensive_care_unit . But I wonder whether it should be "an NICU".

To my mind, the criterion is how "NICU" is pronounced. For example, you write "an NCO", because you pronounce it EN CEE OH, but "a NATO commander", because it's pronounced NAYTO. If people in the medical world refer to "a NEEKOO", than it will be "a NICU", but if they call it "an EN EYE SEE OH", then in my opinion it should be written "an NICO". I've never heard it pronounced, so I don't know. Can medical colleagues who have heard it give me the benefit of their advice?

Thank you!
Responses
3 +1 Yes

Discussion

Charles Davis (asker) Apr 11, 2014:
@ Sheri That's exactly what I wanted. Thank you!
Sheri P Apr 11, 2014:
My son spent two weeks in the NICU of a US hospital 15 years ago. I never once heard any of the hospital staff refer to it as the N-I-C-U. It was always called the "nick you."
Jean-Claude Gouin Apr 10, 2014:
De nada, Carlos ... *
Charles Davis (asker) Apr 10, 2014:
@ 1045 Thank you! Very helpful.
Jean-Claude Gouin Apr 10, 2014:
@ Charles / Carlos en España ,,, NICU: Neonatal Intensive Care Unit; NICU could also mean a Neuro Intensive Care Unit. Some say ‘N-I-C-U’ (each letter); others say ‘nickyou’; she works in a N-I-C-U; she works in a ‘nickyou’. To avoid ambiguity, I would say she works in
‘a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit’ or ‘a Neonatal ICU’. Others call it an ICN for Intensive Care Nursery. Good luck, Charles ...
Charles Davis (asker) Apr 10, 2014:
Well, it's true that if acronyms are pronounceable as words, which this one is, they tend to be pronounced as words.
DLyons Apr 10, 2014:
Initialism? It will greatly surprise me if it turns out to be - I don't know, but I feel it in my waters :-)
Charles Davis (asker) Apr 10, 2014:
One point on Google results: since medical texts are quite often non-native, and in my experience non-natives don't always realise that the indefinite article is determined by the pronunciation, not the first written letter, "a NICU" may not always be reliable.

(By the way, if it is said as a word, it's probably NIGH-KOO rather than NEE-KOO.)
Charles Davis (asker) Apr 10, 2014:
But how do you know it's not an initialism, Donal, that is to say, that's it's pronounced as a word, not as a series of letters? Without hearing it pronounced, I don't think we can tell. That's why I wanted to hear from people who have heard it pronounced.

Sure, it can easily be avoided: I can say "infants admitted to NICUs" instead of "infants admitted to a/an NICU". It's just that I'd like to know.
DLyons Apr 10, 2014:
NICU is not an initialism. So my view is treated as an English word, hence "a NICU". Otherwise, rewrite to avoid the issue.

That said, I haven't actually heard it pronounced!

The Google vote is actually very close to 50:50.

Responses

+1
1 hr
Selected

Yes

Google throws up "[NICU sometimes pronounced Nickyou ]", also ""Nick You" and other variants on that. And it seems unanimous on the "ick" sound.

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Note added at 2 hrs (2014-04-10 10:36:58 GMT)
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Indeed sometimes is not always. I'm mainly relying on https://www.google.fr/search?q="nicu * pronounced" which obviously throws up other senses of "pronounced" and has number of US hits where the practice may differ.
Reference:

http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/pages/abbreviations-acronyms-initialisms.htm

Note from asker:
Thanks for looking! You put me to shame. But "sometimes" is not always. Inspired by your find, I've done some searching myself, and found a forum where nurses discuss this very question: "how do <i>you</i> say it?" And the answer seems that people do both: http://allnurses.com/nicu-nursing-neonatal/do-you-say-160158.html . However, there are a number of pages that say "pronounced NICK-YOU", without "sometimes", and I think this is looks like the standard, so your intuition was right, and thank you.
Peer comment(s):
agree Sheri P : My son spent two weeks in the NICU of a US hospital 15 years ago. I never once heard any of the hospital staff refer to it as the N-I-C-U. They all called it the "nick you."
15 hrs
Thanks Sheri.
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thanks, Donal. Your waters did not deceive you!"
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