A Norwegian paediatrician gave a great interview to the Norwegian ME Association about cognitive challenges in adolescents with ME. Some have asked for a translation to English which is now done. It would be great if anyone would volunteer for a proof reading. The text is approximately four pages and the task has no deadline. I'd be very grateful if someone could check for grammar mistakes, odd choices of words etc. Please PM me if you'd like to lend a hand.
Just a quick question to those who have English as first language; do you say PEM or spell out P.E.M when referring to Post Exertional Malaise? Are there differences between US, UK and perhaps other countries?
I suppose technically it should be P.E.M. but I think PEM is probably fine as we pronounce it as a word rather than the individual letters.
It's not so much that we say 'pem' as that in the UK, we don't generally use full stops for acronyms (as in 'UK'), though some organisations do use them. In the USA, full stops are more common (I think most Americans would write 'U.S.A.'). On MEAction.net, I got several hits for 'PEM' but none for 'P.E.M.', and that's an American site.
I say it as the three letters P E M. I was a bit surprised when listening to a talk recently to hear them saying it as a single word pem. Took me a moment to work out what they were talking about.
Thanks. I tried to watch some info films about PEM to see if there were differences, but of course that's when you do spell it out when explaining what the letters stand for.
That's interesting. Seems there are different practices, which I guess mean that neither P.E.M. or PEM is wrong to use.. I saw a bit of a YouTube lecture with dr Lily Chu, and she says PE-EM, prolonging the E a bit. But I think I've most often heard it with a short E.
Me too, I've never heard anyone just say 'pem' to rhyme with 'them'. It'd be very unclear to anyone who wasn't completely keyed-in to discussions about ME, and even some experienced patients would probably struggle to comprehend it as part of a spoken sentence. At least if you spell it out, you give your audience a clue that it's a set of initials and not a word.
I've never heard 'pem', either. I have heard PENE like penne, although it also means 'penis' in Spanish, so you have to be careful who you say it to.