Commonest usage for this abbreviated phrase is in orders written for hospital patients. e.g.:
Fluids p.o. ad lib (p.o. = per orem = by mouth)

Commonest usage


I don't think so. I'll vote for deviating from the play's, movie's, or TV show's script.

this is today's actual word?? when I click on "today's word" (below) I get dasypygal!
-ron fugacious

Dear Faldage: I think you grossly underestimate the number of hospital orders written every day. Particularly for surgical patients, it would be a serious omission to fail to omit that order, or if they are pre-op, to specify "npo" nothing by mouth, to be sure of empty stomach when anaesthesia is to be administered, to prevent regurgitation of stomach contents which could enter trachea, with possible fatal results.

grossly underestimate the number of hospital orders

I guess it depends on whether you consider one hundred uses by one person to make it more common than one use by each of fifty people. I'm sure more people are aware of the departure from script usage than are aware of the hospital order usage.

Ron, are you saying *you don't subscribe to A.W.A.D.?!

as a matter of fact, I don't; consider:
1) there's a link herein
b) there's a link on my home page
iii) even moreso, I have a link which brings up a whole gubbins of daily words at once
IV) I subscribed my s.o.
F) I have this problem with email

Shouldn't it be E?

>Shouldn't it be E?

Eive??

ah! I was thinking
A B C D E

and you were right, emanuela. Ron has admitted he has a problem with email - like he can't spell it

in Ron's defense, he had already used an alphabetic listing - b), and now was using a letter to represent a number.

yeahbut®

lower case, upper case...
gotta keep nuncle on his toes, eta!