Use of the term "hamburger" by sonographers to describe baby girl "bits"

[ahhhhhpushit]

I've heard this term reported by mothers so many terms that it must by the term sonographers aee taught at sonographer school.

Anybody else feel uncomfortable by it?

Imagine it being said about a baby's bits once she'd been born!

Is it just me?

Beachcomber - good answer :)
What will I be doing? Nothing. I have never used it and nor have colleagues.
The reason I like your answer is that instead of making sonographers 'guilty' with what should be a (perhaps) crass comparision learned from textbooks it actually makes clear that the fault lies in the people who use the term in otherwise derogatory use.

i reckon there's a deathly moment in every long-running thread where people are driven to consult the urban dictionary and respond as if it meant something. it's not dissimilar to Godwin's Law, imo. Every word on there means cunt, pretty much, i doubt we'd be able to communicate at all if we had to cut out the entire urban Roget's thesaurus for women's genitalia.

anyway, OP, i got the impression that an official complaint had been put in because of what you wrote in response to Rita asking if it was a sonographer and if it was 'shaped like a hamburger' or 'hamburger'.

ahhhhhpushit Thu 23-Feb-12 20:21:01
Rita - no ive had friends complain that's exactly what was said "and if you look you can see her hamburger"

i guess what you wrote can be interpreted both ways but i mean FFS even I would have complained to the authorities if a sonographer had pointed out my daughter's actual 'hamburger', so i guess it just never occurred to me that someone would be so utterly useless as to moan about it to their pals without having taken the matter further officially, especially if the pal was the type to post on this board.

we all agree, surely, that actually identifying a foetus's genitalia by a slang word such as 'hamburger' is ridiculously crass? that's the nub of this, so to speak. whether 'the shape of a hamburger' is different to calling it a 'hamburger'.

I know that raising awareness is important but sometimes feel that we give publicity/credence to misogynistic/pornified attitudes which would otherwise exist only in the small minds of a sad minority. This is a general observation, not regarding this exact point.

yes, i think that's what i feel, toothbrush. i said a few times that i thought you had an interesting take on this, i agreed with your earlier thought as well.

Yes, actually identifying a foetus's genitalia by a slang word such as hamburger is ridiculously crass.

?

That's what you said at 20.25. Surely we all agree that ...

Yes. I would agree that.

well my sonographer said" i can see 3 lines so this tells me it's a girl " no mention of food at all :)

but that's always been agreed, what's your point? the issue is whether it is 'the shape of' or 'the hamburger'.

I would like this to be a discussion, not a debate where one poster has a gavel.

?

sorry i posted before i read the whole thread didn't realise this had turned into a bloodbath!!!

This thread .. it could have been a contender ...

don't be a hamburger, linerunner...

I wonder if anyone has been told to 'look for a turtle' with reference to their ds's scans. I certainly can't remember a conversation along those lines when I had my scans. Personally I prefer medical terms to be used because I don't like the implication that just because I am a patient I am therefore a bit of an idiot, which sadly can be prevalent in healthcare (and very noticeable if like me you cross from one side of the desk to the other - I remember my GP doing a huge double take seeing me in his consulting room instead of at a meeting). However I suspect that this has more to do with the fact that many people find it hard to talk about female genitalia (and what a very weird idea that most women have no idea what their genitals look like) so need to use a euphemism in order to feel comfortable.

It's not a euphemism though is it? It's a descrption of the fact that ultrasonically, vulva mimic a hamburger.

TBH I think it's this basic misunderstanding of why the term is used, which is adding to the offence taken.

The assumption that it's used to disparage, make people 'feel comfortable' ???, because you're an idiot etc etc are assumptions and not based on the real reason it is used.

It's used by textbook writers. They have to use words to describe a grey scale line appearance and relate it to anatomy. The penis is obvious. Foetal vulva are less easy to identify -more subtle. It's a term which started probably in the 1970's and holds no connotation for the user.

The 1970s wasn't the best decade for language being PC though was it? If it is as old as that perhaps it needs a rethink. Three white lines = presence of foetal vulva seems fine surely?

Aitch - you're absolutely right and everyone else is being ludicrous. HTH!

It is not slang for a woman's genitals. Any more than a constellation name is slang for stars. On websites where people are squinting at ultrasound pictures, that's the shape they're told to look out for.

Well it would seem that Linerunner is correct - burger (rather than the longer hamburger) is used as slang for the vulva.

As in fur burger, burger shot, and apparently a cheeseburger is a rather gross sexual thing too. I would be well pissed off if I were a sonographer being taught this term only to find out later that it is also used in misogynistic slang.

I don't doubt that it is an unfortunate coincidence but perhaps a more grown up term that is unlikely to be the same sort of word used in slang might be more appropriate nowadays?

Beach - agree - but the people who write the books (which are unlikely to be rewritten) and the lecturers on sonography post grad courses are are the ones who need to know. Hopefully they are all scouring MN for tips

Doesn't everybody check in regularly to find out what the MN collective think of them .

This thread is probably an undercover mission by the sonography bigwigs.

HAMBURGER IS CRASS GOT IT? (Just making sure)

yyy agree with toothbrushthief again, it's not a euphemism, it's a shape to look for. i'm genuinely surprised you're putting so much store in what you read in urban dictionary, beachcomber, i've always assumed that as a crowd-sourced wiki scouring the internet for foul language, the pornified misogynist wanker viewpoint would be hugely over-represented. there really isn't much on that site that doesn't mean women's genitalia in some form or another...

Agree not a euphemism. Not just basing the slang thing on urban dictionary. I did a quick search and it comes up in other places.

onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-definition-of/fur-burger

www.sogoodblog.com/2009/02/18/are-bk-burger-shots-inappropriately-named/

but i as far back ago as 20 years i've heard of female genitals being referred to as a 'fur chequebook', but you can't ban all reference to chequebooks as a result. i genuinely think if you're having to google for offence, then you are going too far.

haaang on... your first link is to another crowd-sourced dictionary (fur burger definition provided by 'Lucas' in 1998 with the pitch 'i wanna lick a Fur Burger', so he's hardly Samuel Johnson and the second uses urbandictionary.com upon which to hang the offence taken.