Ouch.

Today, while chopping an entire case of broccoli into VERY small pieces with a VERY large knife, I sliced my finger open. Hurray! It was really quite exciting, because I felt a slight burn, looked down and thought I had cut myself with such skill that I'd managed to avoid any bleeding. A split second later the cut opened up and it was obvious that there had been no skill involved. After about five minutes of running cold water over the cut one of my kitchen coworkers came over to look at the damage. “Ooo. That’s a good one. It’s not gonna stop without some pressure.” She took me to the back office where she proceeded to bandage it up. But it didn’t stop bleeding so she made a miniature tourniquet out of duct tape. I was impressed. I was still bleeding, but the flow seemed to have slowed. I’m always amazed by the uses of duct tape. But that’s not really the point of this blog or this entry. Instead I want to tell you about this funny word, tourniquet.

The word originated in France between 1685 and 1695 and comes from ‘tourner’ meaning to turn. Not surprising considering most early tourniquets were tightened by turning or twisting the fabric that surrounded a wound. Is it just me or do we seem to take a lot of words from the French?

Word.