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From: Janet <nobody@home.com>
Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Inkhorns are a fascinating linguistic phenomenon, ...
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2024 15:16:55 +0100
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In article <vcb8gc$3csf3$1@dont-email.me>, 
Silvano@noncisonopernessuno.it says...
> 
> Peter Moylan hat am 17.09.2024 um 01:32 geschrieben:
> > On 17/09/24 04:03, Silvano wrote:
> > 
> >> I don't know what is Aidan's profession, but medical practitioners
> >> are not the only people who may need to know the equivalent to a
> >> medical expression in another language. There are also those strange
> >> beasts called translators. I am one of them.
> > 
> > My ex-wife's work as a medical interpreter produced a wealth of stories
> > showing that lots of people understand very little about language.
> > Here's an example that actually happened. I've probably changed the
> > actual words, but I've retained the essence of what happened.
> > 
> > A hospital nurse phoned the interpreter service.
> > 
> > "Could you send an interpreter, please? We have a patient who can't
> > understand English."
> > "OK. What language?"
> > "Oh. I thought the interpreters did all languages."
> > "No, we have different people for different languages."
> > "Well, I think he speaks African."
> > 
> > That reminds me of an incident in an earlier job of hers, when she
> > worked in a psychiatric hospital. A small town north of Newcastle had
> > had no doctor for a long time, but Australia has a policy of getting
> > immigrant doctors out to rural areas, so they finally got someone. That
> > doctor sent one of his patients down to the psych hospital for
> > assessment. The clinical notes said that he was obsessed with attacking
> > birds.
> > 
> > When interviewed, one of the first things he said was
> > "Stone the crows, I don't know why they sent me here."
> 
> 
> I assume that "stone the crows" is a common idiom in that part of Australia.
> 1) What does it mean?

  Expresses surprise or disbelief. 

> 2) Do native speakers of other varieties of English know and use that idiom?

  Yes. It's a very common saying.

  Janet