Blog / English · 01.03.2023

So what’s with the tagline?

Me wearing my pattern leggings, woollen socks and crocs.
You can always go out wearing pattern leggings, woollen socks and crocs.

The patient speaks more than the average Canadian.

– Wait, what? Are you Canadian?

No, I am not Canadian. But the original tagline “Potilas puhuu keskivertokainuulaista enemmän” came from my patient files. Yes! Let me explain!

What happened is that in 2012 I went to the local health centre (terveyskeskus in Finnish) to get a doctors note for the flu. I remember explaining in length about something else that was going on at the moment and the doctor asked me to book another appointment for that. At that time she would not be able to take care of all the issues I was having. The note for my employer was a priority. Anyways, I got the note to excuse my absence. Nothing weird there.

However, a couple of years after, I read in the news that some Finnish people have found funny notes in their information in the medical database. So, I decided to pull my records.

Funnily enough, I did find some extra and funny information in my records. And one of them was this

Potilas puhuu keskivertokainuulaista enemmän

my patient records, 2012

When you put this into Google translate at the time, you got The Patient speaks more than the average Canadian. Nowadays the translation is closer to the correct translation, which is The patient speaks more than the average speaker. However kainuulainen is a person from Kainuu district and Google Translate still doesn`t know how to translate those words.

On top of this, having talked with my cousin about the funny notes, she revealed that she has a similar note. Her note says “patient speaks really a lot”. It seems we are cousins from an area where people seem to be exceptionally quiet, since we have received these diagnoses in our medical records from doctors. Apparently our speaking tempo has been so distinctive, that they deserved to be noted down. Ha ha!

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