A word I used six months ago in mnemonics thread. Bet few "mnemonicate" it. Hook shaped. A small bone in the wrist.
The only little bones I can think of are stirrup, anvil, and hammer....plus the navicular, which is one of my favorite words learned in the past six months.
But--I promise, Bill!--hamate is the next little bone I'll commit to memory.
Curious, I'll have to check whether hamate may be used as an adjective to mean "hook-shaped..."
WW
A small bone in the wrist.
Sort of a blob with a flat, slightly curved handle? We had a right hand/left hand rule for it, if memory serves. Grab the little curved handle between thumb tip and side of curved index finger. If it fits comfortably in the right hand it is a left hamate; if in the left it is a right hamate. If memory serves.
Gosh, you pronounce it HAY-mayte! Just read this on Bartleby:
ADJECTIVE: Anatomy Hooked at the tip.
NOUN: A small, hook-shaped carpal bone of the wrist. Also called unciform.
ETYMOLOGY: Latin hmtus, from hmus, hook.
Not sure about that blob at all, Faldage...
WW
I'll paste a bunch of pictures googled up of the hamate. Here's one so far:
http://www.eatonhand.com/img/img00011.htmAnd this site has a page of pictures, the bottom ones really being very gross:
http://www.eatonhand.com/img/IMG00056.htmThere's a photograph of a hole in the underside of the hand--and then a bloody photograph of the hamate that was excised. My hat is off to doctors. I can just about pass out thinking about that excision as I sit here and type.
The one on the left in the first picture, yeah? And *we pronounced it Ham 8 as in I ate the ham, maw.
Many a medical student has prized his set of earbones, proof he was a careful dissector. The ear bones have a very special function There are the malleus, the incus, and the stapes. The way they are articulated takes the wide weak movements of the eardrum, and reduces their amplitude but increases the power to make the stapes (little stirrup) whose footplate fits into the oval window of inner ear, move powerfully enough to move the fluid waves to go up and around the helix, stimmulating nerves at different heights to produce sensation of different tones. A manifestation of the Almighty at his most magnificent.
Faldage,
The little voice out of the horn on AHD online pronounced it:
HAY-mate.
No joke. And MW online showed HAY-mate, too, although not spelled the way I'm spelling it here. Same sound, however.
But I detected a little hesitancy in the little man-in-the-horn's voice on AHD and suspect he may have originally hung around with your group and felt awkward in having to leave his ham behind.
Bone regards,
WW
Hay, mate! was the way I learned it in Anatomy sixty years ago.
Uh, oh, wwh. We screwed up again! We shudda responded to the original thread about the pronunciation of hamate, and here we've gone and responded to the ear bone part.
Gosh, I hope Max will forgive us as we figure this navigation thing out, but I think only you, Faldage and I are interested in these bones.
Which brings me to my question--not ear bones, but wrist bones:
Why is that piscine bone in the wrist so named? Does it look like a fish?
Bone regards,
WordWrecker
Dear WW: I hate to tell you, but that "piscine" bone sounds fishy to me. I wonder if by chance you were referring to the "pisiform" that resembles half of a pea? Half a pea means bladder is half full.
You're right, wwh. It was pisiform. My brain learned the word the wrong way. Pisiform, 100 times, one hundred little peas in a row...........................................
WW
learned it in Anatomy
Aha! I learned it in Physical Anthro.
We were working on a game using hand and foot bones as playing pieces with different moves as with chess pieces. One player would have the left bones and the other the right. Never did figure out what to do with the pisiform.
Dear Faldage: you have reminded me of a snappy retort from the days of my childhood, when if anybody yelled "Hey!" at you, you replied: "Hay is for horses, better for cows!"
Also the legend that in Revolutionary days, country militia recruits were taught taught close order drill,
by attaching a handfull of straw to one foot and a handful of hay to the other, and given command: Hayfoot, strawfoot....."
Not to be a hayseed or anything, but why didn't they just use left and right?
(wwh wrote:
, country militia recruits were taught taught
close order drill,
by attaching a handfull of straw to one foot and a handful of hay to the other, and given
command: Hayfoot, strawfoot....."
why didn't they just use left and right?
Way I hearn it they din't know which was left and which was right.
Try hayfoot, strawfoot on a bunch city boys see how far *they gits
well this city gal wants to know how do you tell the difference between hay and straw?
hay is grass, harvested green, and allowed to dry. straw is grass that has dried in the field..
both are dried grass.... do they look different? feel different? smell different? (hay has more nutricion than straw.. i only have book knowledge of the stuff- You wouldn't want me to go buy a supply, cause i would know good hay from bad straw!)
Dear of troy: Hay is made from grass cut when lushly green, and dried to preserve the abundand nutrients.
Straw is from cereals, e.g.wheat,or oats, cut very late when no nutrients are left in the stalks, and all it is good for is bedding.
"Hay is for horses, better for cows!"
We had a similar phrase-- "Hay's for horses, grass is cheaper!"
We were less wordy. If A said 'hey!', B replied 'straw!' Much laughter after.