Posted by
Andrews on Friday, July 24, 2009 5:00:07 PM
I haven't written one of these in a while, and this one may be a bit obscure, but I have a gripe with a somewhat outdated term, and a term rapidly becoming outdated, yet a pair of terms I see too often confused. The terms are "sanitorium" and "sanitarium". Both obviously come from the same Latin root, "sanus" meaning sound, the word from which both "sanitary" and "sanity" are derived. The first is a very out dated term for a hospital specializing in the treatment of tubercular diseases. The second is term still sometimes used, but rapidly being supplanted by "mental hospital".
However, it appears that the first term is becoming so obsolete that its meaning has been completely forgotten and it is sometimes used as a synonym for the other. However, it is not. The term for what was once called an "asylum" and now goes by a number of bland euphemisms is "sanitarium".
And that ends this installment of my grammar nazi series. My earlier posts in this and the parallel spelling nazi series can be found listed at the end of "
Spelling Nazi Revisited".
POSTSCRIPT
Oddly, sanitorium is the more recent word. At one time "sanitarium" was the only term, used for all manner of therapeutic institutions. In the early 20th century a need was felt to distinguish the tubercular care facilities and the term "sanitorium" was coined. Thus, when mental health facilities were developed, they were by analogy called sanitaria (also to distinguish them from state run facilities used to warehouse the insane.). As the popularity of such health spas waned (though they later revived under the simple term "spa"), "sanitarium" came to be associated entirely with mental health facilities.