Re: she also complains of pain in her empty head." What I had reported was pain in her foot in the metatarsal joint or MT head. (But apparently this is a mondegreen and not a malapropism?)
well, the person transcribing the tape experienced a Mondegreen moment, and it resulted in a malapropism.
but i suspect, if you corrected the transcriber, and they learned that MT (said--Em Tee, or empty!) as a term for the metatarsal joint, they would be unlikely to make the same mistake. (well eventually, they would catch on that you meant MT Head... )
of course if there is high turn over in the transcribing pool, you will learn to say M T, (the letter Em, the letter Tee, head, not empty).
if i were the transciber, i wouldn't have known (first time round) that MT was short hand for metatarsal*. and if i worked for a pool of doctors, and i thought you were a shrink, pain in an empty head might even sound like a symptom a person might complain of!
(*and i know about metatarsal's, i fractured my 5th metatarsal in a fall--when i went to the ER, i told the doctor, i broke the bone in my foot, that was the same relative place as (and pointed to the area between my wrist and pinky)--until i broke it i confused metatarsals with metapharsals.. (hand bones)--i have never taken an anatomy class, but (crossing thread) have learned the names of many bones from cross word puzzles)
