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thickness wounds

English translation: partial- or full-thickness wounds

GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)
English term or phrase:thickness wounds
Selected answer:partial- or full-thickness wounds
Entered by: Charles Davis

02:29 Sep 13, 2017
English language (monolingual) [Non-PRO]
Medical - Medical (general) / Wound Dressing Instructions.
English term or phrase: thickness wounds
The term comes from a Wound Dressing Instructions For Use Document from The US. I would be interested to know if the term is different in UK English?


The term comes from the indications at the beginning of the document.


The term to be translated is: full thickness wounds.


The context- (The Product) Wound Dressing is indicated for the treatment of partial to full thickness wounds.
Stephen Mason
United Kingdom
Local time: 23:36
partial- or full-thickness wounds
Explanation:
"Partial thickness" and "full thickness" are compound adjectives, and preposed compound adjectives should be hyphenated. In some cases the hyphen avoids ambiguity (e.g., "a large animal clinic" versus "a large-animal clinic").

There is a widespread tendency, illustrated by your text, to omit the hyphen. The relevance to your question is that this tendency is more widespread in US English. Indeed, omission of this hyphen is explicitly allowed by some American guides where no ambiguity results. Here, it is obvious that "full" qualifies "thickness", and it is not possible to understand "full thickness wound" as meaning anything other than a wound of full thickness. Nevertheless, in careful writing it would be included, and including it makes the phrase easier to understand. (Indeed, if I may say so, the fact that you have posted "thickness wound" as the question term gives the impression that it was not obvious to you that "full thickness" forms an indivisible unit.)

In British English you can find examples of "full thickness wound" without a hyphen, but omitting the hyphen here would be regarded by most editors as an error, so I think you should insert it, and since "partial" is an ellipsis of "partial-thickness", you should add a hyphen to it. Not everyone agrees nowadays that such "hanging hyphens" (also known as "suspended" or "dangling" hyphens) are necessary or desirable, but their omission, again, is more commonly defended in American English. Here, if you put "partial" without a hyphen it could be read wrongly as "partial wounds or full-thickness wounds".

So I would change this to:

the treatment of partial- to full-thickness wounds

Hyphens aside, the term itself is exactly the same in British English.

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Note added at 4 hrs (2017-09-13 06:59:30 GMT)
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Sorry: "partial- to full-thickness wounds" in your text.
Selected response from:

Charles Davis
Spain
Local time: 00:36
Grading comment
Selected automatically based on peer agreement.
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer



SUMMARY OF ALL EXPLANATIONS PROVIDED
5 +1Full thickness wounds are wounds that extended past the skin into the subcutaneous tissue.
David Hollywood
4 +2partial- or full-thickness wounds
Charles Davis


Discussion entries: 1





  

Answers


15 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 5/5 peer agreement (net): +1
Full thickness wounds are wounds that extended past the skin into the subcutaneous tissue.


Explanation:
study.com/.../full-thickness-wounds-definition-example-treatment...
Traducir esta página
Full thickness wounds are wounds that extended past the skin into the subcutaneous tissue. Learn about examples and treatments of full thickness...

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Note added at 22 mins (2017-09-13 02:52:15 GMT)
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should read "extend" as a def but ok

David Hollywood
Local time: 19:36
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 30

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  acetran
3 days 15 hrs
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4 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): +2
partial- or full-thickness wounds


Explanation:
"Partial thickness" and "full thickness" are compound adjectives, and preposed compound adjectives should be hyphenated. In some cases the hyphen avoids ambiguity (e.g., "a large animal clinic" versus "a large-animal clinic").

There is a widespread tendency, illustrated by your text, to omit the hyphen. The relevance to your question is that this tendency is more widespread in US English. Indeed, omission of this hyphen is explicitly allowed by some American guides where no ambiguity results. Here, it is obvious that "full" qualifies "thickness", and it is not possible to understand "full thickness wound" as meaning anything other than a wound of full thickness. Nevertheless, in careful writing it would be included, and including it makes the phrase easier to understand. (Indeed, if I may say so, the fact that you have posted "thickness wound" as the question term gives the impression that it was not obvious to you that "full thickness" forms an indivisible unit.)

In British English you can find examples of "full thickness wound" without a hyphen, but omitting the hyphen here would be regarded by most editors as an error, so I think you should insert it, and since "partial" is an ellipsis of "partial-thickness", you should add a hyphen to it. Not everyone agrees nowadays that such "hanging hyphens" (also known as "suspended" or "dangling" hyphens) are necessary or desirable, but their omission, again, is more commonly defended in American English. Here, if you put "partial" without a hyphen it could be read wrongly as "partial wounds or full-thickness wounds".

So I would change this to:

the treatment of partial- to full-thickness wounds

Hyphens aside, the term itself is exactly the same in British English.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 4 hrs (2017-09-13 06:59:30 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

Sorry: "partial- to full-thickness wounds" in your text.

Charles Davis
Spain
Local time: 00:36
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 78
Grading comment
Selected automatically based on peer agreement.

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  philgoddard: The hyphen is equally neglected in UK and US English.
19 mins
  -> Thanks, Phil :) Yes, it is commonly neglected in UK English too, though in my experience American editors seem more willing to tolerate or defend omitting it (I may be wrong). / The hyphen seems to be a more endangered species generally in the US.
agree  Jörgen Slet
11 days
  -> Thank you, Jörgen!
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