Your caller asked about the use of "hurt locker" to get her children to do their chores -- I remember very fondly a 5th grade teacher who pretended to threaten us with "purple curtains" -- "If you don't finish your assignments on time, it'll be purple curtains for you!" etc.
Absquatulate ? Merci beaucoup, petit fille.
With regard to the "laid-lay" surgery question, I side with "laid." I'm a doctor (a neurologist) myself, and have both positioned patients and dictated surgical reports, although my last was years ago. Here's my argument:
In a typical case, the patient is brought to the OR, and before anesthesia, does usually scoot himself or herself over from the stretcher to the operating table. However, once the patient is under anesthesia, the surgeon may well fine-tune the placement of the patient for best access to the surgical site, wherever it may be. Thus, although the patient does move independently to some extent, it is the surgeon who is responsible for the final position during the operation, not the patient.
Furthermore, a correctly written report always indicates the position of the patient during the operation. "Supine" and "prone" are technical terms in these circumstances. Later on, if there are complications, position may be an important piece of the puzzle, both medically and legally. I've seen nerve injuries related to improper positioning of a limb, for example, and you shouldn't imply that the anesthetized patient was primarily responsible for that position.
Hence, I'd say "the patient was laid on the table," implying "by, or under direction of, the surgeon."
But...wouldn't it be just as easy and much better to use the words "placed" or "positioned"?!
I had never heard of hurt locker before the movie (which I have not seen yet, but there are two hurt constructions that I remember from the mid- to late-sixties: world of hurt, which Grant mentioned, usually with the connotation, as I remember it, of being in deep trouble with the law, as in "He got caught after a hit-and-run, so now he's in a world of hurt"; and doing a hurt dance, tending to be used in an academic vein: "After that last exam he's really doing a hurt dance in physics." Either one could be used in other circumstances. I don't believe I've heard either of them much since I finished college in 1970. Wish I'd paid more attention.
Peter
Grant Barrett said:
A medical transcriptionist who majored in English reports that her co-workers are squabbling over a sentence: "The patient was brought to the operating room, and laid supine on the operating-room table."
Lynne said:
Thus, although the patient does move independently to some extent, it is the surgeon who is responsible for the final position during the operation, not the patient.
I agree with Lynne. I think that the "(was) laid" construction is correct in this context, even if the patient was able to perform the action his or herself. My reasoning is that the patient's position has to do more with the will of the doctor, than the will of the patient. Wedding guests are seated at numbered tables at formal weddings, but nobody shoves them down into their seats. Likewise at theater events. This construction implies that the placement is at the direction of another person. Since the point of the surgical transcription is to record the medical decisions, directions, and actions, the use of the "(was) laid" construction seems the more appropriate.