Language Nerd: Croissants & Kidneys

View this post on Instagram

New blog post: I got a laugh when a medical term referring to kidneys reminded me of the French pastry. #translator #medicalscience #translation #pharma #clinicaltrials #kidneydisease #dowhatyoulove #keepfighting #freelancer

A post shared by Brooke A. Cochran (@bcochranhuman) on Jul 1, 2019 at 8:58am PDT

My translations of medical documents are about serious subjects. Cancer, SAE’s, hospital management, etc. They are not a laughing matter. However, that does not stop me from finding, on occasion, a "language nerd" type of humor in my work.
 
While translating a scientific article (explored previously), I came across a wonderful term that made me burst into laughter, dispersing the academic cloud hovering over my desk. In English, the word is glomerular crescent. In French, croissant glomérulaire. It is a histological finding that signals extensive glomerular damage. More precisely, according to this article, “A crescent is made up of proliferating epithelial cells that line the Bowman capsule and infiltrating macrophages.”
 
The humor came into play when I researched the term in French for the first time. The author had assumed the reader would know what a crescent was in the context of kidney disease, hence, he did not define it. The sentence in which it appeared simply stated the percentage of croissants found on a histological exam. At first, I thought it was a reference to "growing" or "growths," since those are also correct French to English translations. However, that meaning did not fit the context. So, a quick internet search later for "croissants + histologique," and my screen contained hits for medical science articles AND several images of the famous French pastry… lovely, flaky, buttery croissants. I hadn’t even thought of that! Duh, croissants with jam, not croissants in kidneys!!!

The idea of the medical and culinary domains meeting briefly around this term was this language nerd’s moment of joy while working on a translations. I’m sure other translators have had this experience, too. Take a moment to appreciate it!
 
Quote taken from this article, which also contains more helpful information on the condition: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK430727