4 ms·

and it is Down's syndrome, named after John Down. The preference in the international medical literature is to name syndromes WITHOUT the possessive suffix on

and it is Down's syndrome, named after John Down. The preference in the international medical literature is to name syndromes WITHOUT the possessive suffix on the name of the discoverer, partly because languages don't agree on what grammatical ending to use to indicate genitive case. Thus the standard name of this syndrome, for people who don't more descriptively say "trisomy 21," is "Down syndrome," without the apostrophe-s ending. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponymously_named_diseases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponymously_named_dise...

epo 13y ago
I'm not conversant with the 'international medical literature' so I shall assume you know what you are talking about. However, I don't take wikipedia as an authorative source on anything.
- huherto 13y ago
  I disagree. Wikipedia links are very good, specially for informal discussions like this one. - The content is readable by most people without having to have specialized knowledge on the subject. - The content is open and reviewed by multiple people. - You have links to the references. In this case there is a link to this NIH article. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2667526/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2667526/ But the content is more technical and harder to read for most people.
  - epo 13y ago
    I said it wasn't authoritative, I said nothing about readability or openness, neither of which have anything to do with what is under discussion. I can provide plenty of UK links which refer to Down's syndrome.
- tokenadult 13y ago
  I'm a Wikipedian, and I'm fully with you in not taking Wikipedia as authoritative about much of anything, because I have seen how the sausage is made at Wikipedia. That said, after a Google search, I saw that the two articles I linked to showed that many medical syndromes are named without a possessive ending on the personal name associated with the syndrome, including Down syndrome, and that was the immediate point at issue. By the way, I try to light a candle as well as curse the darkness at Wikipedia, by gathering lists of good sources for all the Wikipedians to use, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/IntelligenceCitations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/Intellig... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/AnthropologyHumanBiologyRaceCitations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/Anthropo... and by updating articles that have long been tagged as needing improvement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_classification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_classification I wish that Wikipedia were much better, but the current way to make it better is for people to roll up their sleeves and do something about making it better.
csixty4 13y ago
Same with "Tourette Syndrome". It took a while to get used to, but it makes sense.

epo 13y ago

I'm not conversant with the 'international medical literature' so I shall assume you know what you are talking about. However, I don't take wikipedia as an authorative source on anything.

huherto 13y ago
I disagree. Wikipedia links are very good, specially for informal discussions like this one. - The content is readable by most people without having to have specialized knowledge on the subject. - The content is open and reviewed by multiple people. - You have links to the references. In this case there is a link to this NIH article. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2667526/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2667526/ But the content is more technical and harder to read for most people.
- epo 13y ago
  I said it wasn't authoritative, I said nothing about readability or openness, neither of which have anything to do with what is under discussion. I can provide plenty of UK links which refer to Down's syndrome.
tokenadult 13y ago
I'm a Wikipedian, and I'm fully with you in not taking Wikipedia as authoritative about much of anything, because I have seen how the sausage is made at Wikipedia. That said, after a Google search, I saw that the two articles I linked to showed that many medical syndromes are named without a possessive ending on the personal name associated with the syndrome, including Down syndrome, and that was the immediate point at issue. By the way, I try to light a candle as well as curse the darkness at Wikipedia, by gathering lists of good sources for all the Wikipedians to use, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/IntelligenceCitations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/Intellig... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/AnthropologyHumanBiologyRaceCitations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/Anthropo... and by updating articles that have long been tagged as needing improvement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_classification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_classification I wish that Wikipedia were much better, but the current way to make it better is for people to roll up their sleeves and do something about making it better.

csixty4 13y ago

Same with "Tourette Syndrome". It took a while to get used to, but it makes sense.