Dentistry Verbs in English: Who Does What to Whom

The verbs that appear most often in dentistry happen to be irregular, and regularising them produces forms that do not exist. The essential set: grind — ground — ground, bite — bit — bitten, bleed — bled — bled, fall — fell — fallen, break — broke — broken, feel — felt — felt, wear — wore — worn, hold — held — held, cut — cut — cut. Note ground doubles as the past of grind and as a noun meaning earth, and wear gives the clinical noun wear as in tooth wear. Grinded and bited are the two most frequent slips.

With separable phrasal verbs a pronoun object must sit between verb and particle: take it out, build it up, top it up, wipe it off. A noun object may go either side — take out the crown and take the crown out are both fine — but take out it never is. The chairside set worth drilling: take out, build up, top up, put in, wipe off. Note that some are inseparable and take no object at all: wear off, flare up, come out, fall out, come through — the anaesthetic wore off, not wore it off.

Two patterns that resist direct translation. First, recommend and suggest do not take object plus infinitive: say I recommend flossing, I recommend that you floss, or I recommend daily flossing. Compare advise, which does allow it — I advise you to floss — and tell, ask and want, which also do. Second, explain, describe, suggest, mention and report require to before the recipient: explain the technique to the patient, never explain the patient the technique. Verbs like give, show and send are the exception and take both orders.

A Romance false friend: French supporter, Spanish soportar and Portuguese suportar mean to endure, while English support means to hold up, to back or to fund. To endure something is bear, stand, tolerate, put up with or cope with — I cannot bear the pain, she cannot stand the sound of the drill. The clinical nouns are pain tolerance and pain threshold. Support keeps its own sense in supporting tissues, implant-supported denture and supportive periodontal therapy.

Spelling distinguishes part of speech here. Advise /ədˈvaɪz/ is the verb, with a /z/; advice /ədˈvaɪs/ is the noun, with an /s/, and it is uncountable — some advice, a piece of advice, never an advice. British English applies the same rule to practise as verb and practice as noun: I practise at a practice in Leeds. American English spells both practice. The parallel pair is licence as noun and license as verb in British usage. The test: if you can substitute the verb recommend, you need advise.