My daughter, a lawyer for a pharmaceutical company, asked me what is meant when a nurse writes, "The patient was bagged" - except that I heard it as, The patient was "bad." I kept telling her it didn't mean anything special - either the patient's condition was bad or the patient was behaving poorly. Apparently this was written in one of the briefs she was reading. It wasn't until the end of the conversation when she said, "You do understand that I am saying b-a-g (spelling it out), don't you?" Of course, I hadn't and then it was easy. A patient being bagged means that they are using something similar to an Ambu bag to ventilate the patient.

So, my question? Isn't it a little strange that within our family, each of us living in the Chicago area, we have different pronunciations (accents?) of a pretty common word?

I'd have guessed that the patient was dead and put in a body-bag.

I suspect it's partly a generation 'thing'. Parents will often misunderstand their children, and vice versa.

arnie, I suppose that kind of "bagging" would be possible, too.

You think it's generational? Maybe, but I think it might be more than that because my daughter is a huge authority on correct pronunciation - or at least she thinks she is.