Doctors and DIY- some vocabulary

DIY – noun / adjective – UK abbreviation for do-it-yourself – the activity of decorating or repairing your home, or making things for your home yourself, rather than paying someone else to do it for you.
Eg a DIY shop; a DIY enthusiast
I’ll just do a bit of a DIY job on my garage…..
to scale sth down – phrasal verb – to make something smaller than it was or smaller than it was planned to be:eg They had planned to go abroad for 2 years, but when they realised how much it was going to cost, they decided to scale down their visit to 6 months.
from scratch – from the beginning, without using anything that already exists – eg It took us five years to build up our business from scratch.
as fit as a fiddle – very healthy and strong; perfectly healthy. A fiddle is a violin! We also say someone is as fit as a flea.

The NHS – the National Health Service
infer – formal verb – 1) form an opinion or guess that something is true because of the information that you have – eg What do you infer from his denial?
I inferred from his expression that he was bored and wanted to go home.
2) convey a view to others which is not corroborated or made explicit (eg He inferred she didn’t know what a hard day’s work was….. – i.e. he gave that impression, but didn’t actually say it).
a contraption is a device or machine that looks awkward or old-fashioned, especially one that you do not know how to use – eg Stuart’s creating some strange contraption to improve the reception on our TV.
Heath Robinson contraptions Heath Robinson – 1872 – 1944 – was an English cartoonist and illustrator, best-known for the amusing, complicated and outlandish inventions he portrayed.
workforce – group noun – the group of people who work in a company, industry, country, etc
eg The recycling plant has a workforce of about 50.
An audiologist works with patients as part of a multidisciplinary team of professionals who identify and assess hearing and/or balance disorders, recommend and provide appropriate rehabilitation and management.
widget – informal noun – 1 any small device whose name you have forgotten or do not know (‘he’s bringing some widget – can’t remember what it’s called….’) 2 an imagined small product made by a company:
eg Do you think we could devise some widget that could keep the volume down on iPods? If we made 50 pence profit on every widget we sold we’d be millionaires in 2 years.
A gizmo / gismo (plur gizmos / gismos) – informal noun – any small device with a particular purpose:
eg He wants some gizmo for his computer / They keep introducing these new electronic gizmos to monitor heating equipment.

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