Why is Ob/Gyn pronounced Oh-bee/Gee-why-en?

April 26, 2013 10:19 PM

In the US, in my experience, the medical specialties of obstetrics and gynecology are commonly referred to as "Oh-bee/gee-why-en." Does anyone know why? Why not simply pronounce it "obb- gyne" (the first syllables of the two words)?

We don't call cardiology "see-ae-arr-dee, " or neurology as "en-eee-you-arr-oh" so why is Ob/gyn special? I sense something sexist about it, but I can't put my finger on it. Thanks to anyone who can answer my silly question.

posted by brevator to Health & Fitness (41 answers total)

(For whatever it's worth, ob/gyn isn't totally unique in this regard. There are other medical specialties that get referred to by their initials — E.N.T. for ear-nose-and-throat specialist and G.P. for general practitioner come to mind.)
posted by Now there are two. There are two _______. at 10:25 PM on April 26, 2013 [5 favorites]

I observe that all of the above mentioned contractions are exactly that and those which are 'spelled out' contain multiple words and are not so prone to abbreviation by contraction. perhaps the relevant question is 'why isn't it pronounced OG?'
posted by mce at 10:30 PM on April 26, 2013 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Yes, but E.N.T. stands for eyes, (ears), nose and throat. OB doesn't stand for anything. It's just the first syllable of the word spelled out.
posted by brevator at 10:30 PM on April 26, 2013 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: mce- I'm struggling to come up with an "obstetrics - contractions" joke.
Honestly though, I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.
posted by brevator at 10:35 PM on April 26, 2013

There are regional variations in how it's pronounced in the U.S. -- in Chicago, you fairly commonly hear "obie-guynie." Both President and Mrs. Obama have said it "obie-guynie" in speeches (more commonly in the first campaign than the second) and it always draws media commentary. Lots of discussion in the comments at Jezebel here.

These days I mostly hear people say either "I was at the O.B. the other day" or "I was at the gynecologist ..."

Obie-Guynie has a rhythm to it. Obie-Guyn flows. "OBB-GIN" is the awkwardest-sounding thing ever! It sounds like a knock-off Tolkein orc name or something. It's also hard to say fast because of the buh-guh combination, which sort-of defeats the purpose of shortening it.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:36 PM on April 26, 2013 [1 favorite]

Sometimes it is pronounced obb-gyne--- informally. Why it isn't more wide spread perhaps because it sounds silly. As to the initials in general, perhaps because it's a real mouth full to say obstetrics and gynecology, just as ears nose and throat. Also fwiw, calling an ob/gyn office will oftentimes get you the full nine syabal pronunciation.

I'd be interested if someone could make as cognizant 'because of sexism' argument. (Meant in an interested manner, not snarkey)

Obviously OB does stand for something, just not precisely in the same format as E.N.T, if anything it's more precise as you know what OB stands for independently whereas E, could be anything
posted by edgeways at 10:36 PM on April 26, 2013

I've heard people say OB/Gee-why-en as well as OB/guy-nee.
posted by Autumn at 10:37 PM on April 26, 2013 [3 favorites]

I would guess the pronunciation can vary a lot depending on who you talk to. I know people who are physicians and they pronounce it "oh-bee-gyn." Similarly, cardiology is shortened as "cards," neurology as "neuro."

To address your suggestion that there is something sexist about the abbreviation of this particular specialty, I did find some information regarding demographic trends in OB/Gyn providers. Specifically, if the number of women Ob/Gyns are increasing, there should be less bias. While I'm not familiar with the precise historical trends of the gender breakdown of ob/gyn (and the AMA and the ACOG bury their data behind a paywall), from what I gather, there is an increasing number of women as OB/Gyns over the last 20 years or so. (From a googled PDF summary from 2003, the fraction of private praticioner ob/gyns increased from 21% to 39% between 1991 and 2003, and from a paper describing the trends in residency training in NY state, the number of males in training have dropped from 46% to 23% between 1998 to 2003).

I highly doubt that there is a sexist bias in making this abbreviation and the more likely explanation is that MD's are busy people and they're just saving their breath when referring to their colleagues.
posted by scalespace at 10:41 PM on April 26, 2013

i call it a gyno (and know others who do too). i also have heard cardio and neuro. other abbreviation differences - it's usually the eye-see-you unless you're talking about the one for babies in which case is the nick-you.
posted by nadawi at 10:44 PM on April 26, 2013 [5 favorites]

The only commonly abbreviated medical specialty I can think of that isn't referred to by initials is pediatrics, which is commonly called "peeds".

My mother is a nurse, my father is a pediatrician, and they've always said Oh-Bee or Oh-Bee-Gee-Why-En.

(FWIW I don't think the B in OB stands for anything, and the GYN is definitely short for "gynecology".)

My guess is that it's one of those weird quirks of the world of medicine. Why do we still call it the ER when most hospitals have an Emergency Medical Center, not an Emergency Room? Why do we call an otolaryngologist an ENT when we don't call an orthopedic surgeon a Bone or a cardiologist a Heart?
posted by Sara C. at 10:45 PM on April 26, 2013 [1 favorite]

I stand corrected -- I don't know why I didn't remember cardiology is abbreviated to cards, considering my mom was a cardiology nurse for years. I've also heard cardio, and the hospital she worked in called it's cardiac care unit "CCU", so I've thought of cardiology as CCU forever as well.

My point I guess is that the nicknames are all over the place and are mostly just whatever people call themselves/call other specialties they're familiar with.
posted by Sara C. at 10:48 PM on April 26, 2013

Because going to the O.G. to have your vagina checked out would just be silly. Really.
posted by cmoj at 10:50 PM on April 26, 2013 [9 favorites]

Well, to pin down an actual answer better than the off-the-cuff speculation in this thread would require real historical research, and I'm not able to contribute that right now, either. But, just as a data point, I have, occasionally, heard "OB-gine" both with a soft "g" and a hard one. And I suspect that the explanation of the choice of abbreviation partly has to do with a desire, likely unconscious and in any case based on nothing more than etymological coincidence, to avoid pronouncing "gyn" similarly to the second syllable of "vagina."
posted by RogerB at 11:02 PM on April 26, 2013 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: MD's are busy people and they're just saving their breath when referring to their colleagues.

Yes, but saying the 5 letters of O-B-G-Y-N is significantly longer than saying Ob-gyne or O.G.
posted by brevator at 11:03 PM on April 26, 2013

Yes, but saying the 5 letters of O-B-G-Y-N is significantly longer than saying Ob-gyne or O.G.

Length isn't everything though-- oh-bee-gee-why-en flows a lot better than ob-gyne because the consonant sounds aren't mushed together.
posted by acidic at 11:18 PM on April 26, 2013

FWIW in the UK, everyone in the speciality calls it "O & G" (oh'an'gee). Patients would usually just say "gynaecologist" or "gynae", and in my own experience rarely know what an obstetrician is, since all antenatal care is midwife led.
posted by roofus at 11:34 PM on April 26, 2013 [2 favorites]

MD's are busy people and they're just saving their breath when referring to their colleagues.
Yes, but saying the 5 letters of O-B-G-Y-N is significantly longer than saying Ob-gyne or O.G.

My 2 cents. OB/Gyn is also shorter to WRITE which comes in handy.

OB - Obstetrics - "Medical specialty dealing with the care of all women's reproductive tracts and their children during pregnancy (prenatal period), childbirth and the postnatal period."

Gyn - Gynecology - "Medical practice dealing with the health of the female reproductive system (uterus, vagina, and ovaries). Literally, outside medicine, it means "the science of women"."

You could just have an OB, or you could have a Gyn doctor. They tend to practice both, hence the slash in Ob/Gyn. FWIW - I do marketing for doctors and medical professionals.
posted by Crystalinne at 11:49 PM on April 26, 2013 [1 favorite]

It might be because GYN is awkward to pronounce. Having never seen it before, do you use a soft G? A hard G? A long I? A short I? Someone might have started spelling out the second half of the name for that reason. Then it's a short step to spelling out the whole thing.

Just an idea.
posted by htid at 11:58 PM on April 26, 2013 [1 favorite]

Total guess, but might it be because of the "delicate/personal" nature of that field, and it's more discreet spelling it out? Sort of like the old joke of saying "v-e-t" around animals?

Whether it became popular out of actual or cool/ironic embarrassment... that'd just be more speculation.
posted by TheSecretDecoderRing at 12:01 AM on April 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

Perhaps people aren't likely to say 'Obs' over 'O-B' is because Obstetrics is just a less commonly used term all around. Even OB/GYN residents are much more likely to say "I'm covering L&D" or "I'm on labor and delivery this month" than to say something like "I'm doing an obstetrics month." And even most patients are only in a position to see an obstetrician a few times in their life.

Why did it become less common? Who knows. Maybe the combination of a short vowel followed by a bunch of consonants is empirically difficult to pronounce without practice. (Otolaryngology is certainly hard to pronounce and hence why everyone started calling them 'Ear, Nose and Throat doctors,' even though they can sometimes be obnoxious about making a point to not call themselves 'ENTs'). But maybe its one of those why do Americans call it a 'Family Medicine Doc' where Brits will say "GP." Or why do we say 'Physician's Office' as opposed to 'Surgery.'

Either way, the title 'gynecologist' is more often used in the long form by both patients and docs, hence why you often do hear "O-B-Gyne" (hard 'g' sound, rhymes with 'vine') used along with "O-B-G-Y-N." Sometimes with friends I will say 'Obs-Gyne' but then I'm just being obnoxious.

Other physician specialties that are abbreviated to initials: IR (Interventional Radiology, even though Interventional Cardiology isn't), PM&R (Physical Med and Rehab), CRS (Colo-rectal surgery aka proctologist), EM (Emergency Med).
posted by midmarch snowman at 12:41 AM on April 27, 2013

I totally say Ob-jin. Not even Ob-guyn. Ob-jin. To me, ob-guyn is the really awkward pronunciation. I never say ob-bee-gee-why-en because it takes forever. But I would guess that people spell it out because ob-guyn is awkward to say, and ob-jin is technically wrong. (Obie-guynie is the silliest version I've ever heard, but I get that people say it because it's easier to say.)

Either way, I've never felt there was anything sexist about it. I can't even imagine what would be sexist about it. Abbreviations get pronounced all sorts of ways just because of convention. One abbreviation's pronunciation will evolve separately from other similarly structured abbreviations, and it's usually just based on whatever is easiest to say.
posted by Nattie at 12:42 AM on April 27, 2013

Yes, but E.N.T. stands for eyes, (ears), nose and throat. OB doesn't stand for anything. It's just the first syllable of the word spelled out.

You're making a mountain out of a molehill. OB/GYN is spelled out that way because that's the way the profession is listed on charts, hospitals and medical buildings, and it's the standard way they are referred to within the professional community. And it's pronounced that way because acronyms are very prominent in medical language.

Acronyms also reduce the potential for confusion rising out of linguistic anomalies, such as pronunciation. BID, TID, Q3H, SS are all rather unnecessary but standard speak when you are calling a prescription over the phone.

Now, are you in addition asking why of all the letters to settle down, the acronym "OB/GYN" was created? Probably because it's the first syllable of each word. "GYN" is also the universal prefix for female in Greek and English, and as for ob-, that's a little less clear, but it's Latin for "toward" or "against."

So there's your answer, and if you think that "ob=against/gyn=women" is sexist, well I guess you now have the makings of a conspiracy theory.
posted by phaedon at 1:03 AM on April 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

(although I generously lol'd at the kicker in Phaedon's post, I gotta point out that obstetrics is actually from the Latin for midwife Obstetrix, which comes from "Ob Sto," which according to Stedman's apparently means "to stand by"...

...which accurately describes 96% of my time on Labor and Delivery...

...so much counting)
posted by midmarch snowman at 1:17 AM on April 27, 2013 [2 favorites]

I work in an academic setting in Australia and it's O and G (or O'n'G) here, although on its own the specialty is gynae-rhymes-with-heinie.
posted by gingerest at 1:37 AM on April 27, 2013

My hunch is that is that it's a case of reverse engineering, linguistically. Non-practitioners assume those are initials, and then it gets picked up, since it's probably the least 'wrong' way if you're to guess (eg the hard or soft 'g' conundrum). I don't think it's a case of sexism, just widespread mistaken assumption. But I'm learning to be less of a prescriptivist, so I'm letting this one go.
posted by cendawanita at 1:42 AM on April 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: You're making a mountain out of a molehill

I'm not making a mountain out of anything. I specifically stated in my post that I know it a silly question

OB/GYN is spelled out that way because that's the way the profession is listed on charts, hospitals and medical buildings, and it's the standard way they are referred to within the professional community. And it's pronounced that way because acronyms are very prominent in medical language.

I think you've missed the entire point of my question actually.

Other physician specialties that are abbreviated to initials: IR (Interventional Radiology, even though Interventional Cardiology isn't), PM&R (Physical Med and Rehab), CRS (Colo-rectal surgery aka proctologist), EM (Emergency Med).

Yes, so why isn't Obstetrics/gynecology abbreviated to O.G.? Or why don't we call interventional radiology IN RA and pronounce it "eye-en arr-ae"?

to avoid pronouncing "gyn" similarly to the second syllable of "vagina."

And that would be the sexist angle I was talking about. We still live in a world where teachers get in trouble for using the word vagina in class. Perhaps sexist is the wrong word. Puritan might better.
posted by brevator at 1:58 AM on April 27, 2013 [5 favorites]

roofus: FWIW in the UK, everyone in the speciality calls it "O & G" (oh'an'gee)."
FWIW, I've heard doctors in the UK, admittedly in other specialities, call it "Obs & Gynae" (obs'an'guy-nee)
posted by James Scott-Brown at 2:08 AM on April 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I had never heard the spelled out version of this until today. I am in Australia and we don't call it an Ob-gyn, but I had always seen that written and pronounced it to rhyme with "fob pine" (hard g).

I don't buy the whole "it flows better" or "it's easier to say argument" (a) because I'm a linguist and I really don't see anything about either option that makes one easier or harder except for length, and (b) because I had never heard the spelled out option until now, and saying it aloud I certainly don't think it sounds especially natural. I think the people saying it's the obvious and natural contraction are doing so because it's all about what you are used to hearing.

I think the reason you, brevator, suspected something sexist afoot is the history in English at least (not sure about other languages) of spelling words that are "rude" in some way so that children won't understand, or to avoid taboos. And yes, it would be sexist if we were spelling a medical term instead of saying it properly because it was to do with women's bits and because those are considered rude or icky.

Without looking more closely at the history of the term, I'm not sure we'll know whether the taboo-avoidance angle is correct explanation or not. I wouldn't be surprised, though, especially because of the existence of other taboo-avoiding alternatives for the same word (I've heard "lady parts doctor", for example.)
posted by lollusc at 2:35 AM on April 27, 2013 [5 favorites]

Yeah, this weirded me out when I moved from New Zealand to the USA (particularly as I started dating a medical student who was at that time doing his ob-gyn rotation, and had to hear him say it all the time.) I asked a lot of people at the time, and got a shrug in response.
posted by gaspode at 3:58 AM on April 27, 2013

Pediatrics = Peds (Peeds)
Orthopedics = Ortho, Orthopod
Ophthalmology = Optho
Cardiology = Cards
General Surgery = Gen Surg (Jen Surge)
Plastic Surgery = Plastics
Dermatology = Derm
Obstetrics and Gynecology = OB-Gyn (OB-Guy-n)
Hematology and Oncology = Heme-Onc (Heam-Onk)
Radiology = Rads (Radds)
Urology = Urology
Neurology = Neuro
Gastroenterology = GI
Endocrinology = Endocrine
Nephrology = Nephrology
Psychiatry = Psych
posted by gramcracker at 4:46 AM on April 27, 2013 [3 favorites]

OB doesn't stand for anything. It's just the first syllable of the word spelled out.

There's a small class of words for which this happened, pretty much all by chance. ID = IDentification. DTs = DeToxification. TB = TuBerculosis. I don't think there's a term for it and I also don't think there's any reason other that custom.
posted by psoas at 5:07 AM on April 27, 2013 [6 favorites]

Many people I know call it a "gyno" if they're just going to a gynecologist, or if they are not using the obstetrics service, so I don't really understand the sexism angle. My gynecologist is an OB/GYN, but I just say I'm going to the gyno because I don't use her OB services. So do all my friends. When we do become pregnant we say we're going to an OB or sometimes an OB/GYN.

The "spelling it out" as a way to hide it from children doesn't make a lot of sense to me. A kid who doesn't know how to spell isn't going to know that "gyn" is a word associated with a women's reproductive system. In times that such topics were considered not appropriate for children, they would simply not be discussed in front of them at all. If the word "Gyn" was not considered appropriate for adult company, then spelling it out would also not be appropriate - it would be a "specialist" or a "lady doctor" or, again, not discussed at all.
posted by muddgirl at 5:31 AM on April 27, 2013

Mod note: OP, please don't argue with people who are are answering; just pass by any answers that don't seem helpful.
posted by taz (staff) at 5:33 AM on April 27, 2013

This isn't helpful, but another regional variant. I'm in an Australian hospital, and we call it 'obs-gyn' or 'oh-and-gee'.
posted by chiquitita at 6:27 AM on April 27, 2013

I think things like ENT and GP are relevant because Ob/Gyn is an abbreviation which is pronounced (in the US) like an acronym. While it would not surprise me at all if there was some level of "don't speak too loudly about ladybits" involved, it also fits the conventions of the way many medical acronyms are used and (in allcaps, as frequently seen on signs, nametags, etc) looks like an acronym. I have known women who did not know what Ob/Gyn stands for (and not only those of an age where it was referred to as "going to the lady doctor" or "going to the baby doctor") and at least one thought the B in OB had something to do with babies. Which would make sense in an acronym.

And now I've typed "acronym" so many times that it no longer looks like a real word.

As an aside, the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology was previously (before 1920) known as theAmerican Journal of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children. My guess is that this was for the benefit of (male) physicians who wanted to be taken more seriously and not to make it sound more wholistic/less sexist, but hey progress.
posted by camyram at 7:32 AM on April 27, 2013

"Obs" is used in the US to refer to observation in hospitals. The obs unit is the observation unit where you keep people who are not expected to stay longer than 24 hours. So that is one reason why spelling out OB for obstetrics differentiates it.

And just to make a small clarification, DT stands for delirium tremens. TB is short for tubercle bacillus.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 8:29 AM on April 27, 2013 [5 favorites]

Canadian medical students I know say "obs-GUY-knee". However, I don't think I've ever heard non-med students say it like that.
posted by ghost dance beat at 9:43 AM on April 27, 2013

Anecdata: I work with many repro health doctors. Many of the older ob/gyns I work with say "Oh-bee-jinn."
posted by cowboy_sally at 10:45 AM on April 27, 2013

In my hospital, variously:
OB (oh bee)
OB-Gyn (oh bee guyn)
GYN
Gyn

OB is used for obstetrics services specifically, gyn for gynecology services broadly (occasionally including OB).

Subspecialties and service names:
Reproductive choice: repro choice, RC
Gynecologic oncology: gyn onc
Labor and delivery: L and D

For what it's worth, ob/gyn as a field tends to use a tremendous number of acronyms, so shortening the name of the field at large is only the tip of the iceberg. The acronym has nothing to do with sexism/taboo and everything to do with medicine, and more specifically surgical fields, culture of obscure insular jargon.
posted by demons in the base at 10:53 AM on April 27, 2013 [2 favorites]

Look. Really. In the US, O.G. is common parlance meaning "Original Gangsta." Most people are aware of this and it's been around in the modern sense for over 40 years. I don't know if pre-70's ob/gyns were obb-guyns or not, but it would really just be silly and a general linguistic deterrent to go around saying, in a semi-valid interpretation of one's words, "I gotta go see an Original Gangster about my yeast infection."

In short, O.G. is already taken in common language.
posted by cmoj at 12:19 PM on April 27, 2013 [2 favorites]

Gyne, woman in greek. My mother-in-law used to talk about the 'guy-nee' man.

I think the awkwardness comes because if you have had a certain sort of education, which you would have had to have in the past before even having the opportunity to study medicine, you know to pronounce 'gyne' as 'guy-nee', which is not how you would pronounce it if you weren't aware of the etymology. So there is a little bit of awkwardness around how to pronounce it correctly: as if the abbreviation is canted towards hinting at the correct pronounciation.

It's reaching a bit to see sexism here; IMO it's more that etymological remnants from two different languages have produced a bit of a clash.
posted by glasseyes at 8:14 PM on April 27, 2013