Understanding Athelind's Argot: Pupils Equal and Reactive.

[athelind]

Pupils equal and reactive is a phrase you'll hear on any medical show, and in a lot of real-life emergency rooms and accident scenes. It was almost a catch phrase on Jack Webb's classic paramedic drama, Emergency!, and that's where it entered my vocabulary, long before my own excursion into the rescue-response field.

The Original Meaning: When faced with an unconscious or unresponsive patient, one of the first things an emergency responder does is shine a penlight into each eye, in turn. If the pupils don't contract (are not reactive), or don't react to the same degree (are not equal), that's an indication of head trauma, concussion, and possible brain damage.

When Your Obedient Serpent Says It: It's usually in response to "how are you?", and invoked when the answer is "All Systems Nominal, with cause for optimism."

Because, you know, any day where you don't have brain damage is a victory, right? Any landing you can walk away from.

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... I have no idea if this is a glass-half-empty or glass-half-full attitude.

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Comments

[snobahr.livejournal.com]

... I have no idea if this is a glass-half-empty or glass-half-full attitude.

It's a Who drank my beer?! attitude :D

[leonard-arlotte.livejournal.com]

This is the second reference to Emergency! I've heard in the past week. Now I'm definitely going to have to start watching that series again on Hulu.

[snobahr.livejournal.com]

I gave my brother the complete set on DVD for his birthday (or Christmas) some years ago. His youngest kids love it. I'm going to have to pick it up for my own boy, because he wants to be a police officer when he grows up. Between Emergency! and Adam-12, it'll be a good start. And a good chance for me to chortle in my drinkahol when I'm watching it with him.

[leonard-arlotte.livejournal.com]

When I was six, we used to play Emergency! on the playground. The one Italian kid in our class always got to be Cap.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

I suspect that early exposure to both Emergency! and Thunderbirds influenced my choice of the Coast Guard for my military service.

[ebony14.livejournal.com]

Sounds distinctly like a synonym for "five by five."

[jthinktoomuch.livejournal.com]

"... I have no idea if this is a glass-half-empty or glass-half-full attitude."

My feeling is that this saying is a full glass attitude, keeping fully in mind that the glass is only half full of my preferred beverage. At least I can drink the beer I have.

... Hey wait, who drank half of my beer?