"Plastic/cosmetic surgery"

[Rachel Adams]

Should I use "plastic" or "cosmetic" in my sentence and if I use it in singular should I use it without an article?


1. "Women should have cosmetic/plastic surgeries/surgery if they need them."

2. "She is going to have a plastic/cosmetic surgery."

3. "People should have cosmetic surgery/surgeries if they want to be attractive."

 

[PeterCW]

"Cosmetic" does seem to be the favoured term these days or "recostructive" if it is done for medical reasons. It is used without an article in the context of your examples and I have only ever heard the singular used even when several procedures are involved.

 

[Rachel Adams]

"Cosmetic" does seem to be the favoured term these days or "recostructive" if it is done for medical reasons. It is used without an article in the context of your examples and I have only ever heard the singular used even when several procedures are involved.

Then I had better change "surgeries" into "surgery" in my sentences. If "surgeries" is wrong or maybe not wrong but not used. I wasn't sure if with "women" and "people" it would be correct to use "surgery".

 

[emsr2d2]

Then I had better change "surgeries" into "surgery" in my sentences. If "surgeries" is wrong or maybe not wrong but not used. I wasn't sure if with "women" and "people" it would be correct to use "surgery".

If you use "surgeries", it suggests those people will all be having more than one operation.

"Except for medical reasons, neither men nor women should have plastic surgery."

 

[Rachel Adams]

If you use "surgeries", it suggests those people will all be having more than one operation.

"Except for medical reasons, neither men nor women should have plastic surgery."

Could you please suggest a sentence in which it won't be wrong to use an indefinite article before "surgery"? The definite article is possible if I am talking about a specific surgery, but an indefinite?

 

[GoesStation]

Could you please suggest a sentence in which it won't be wrong to use an indefinite article before "surgery"? The definite article is possible if I am talking about a specific surgery, but an indefinite?

We don't normally use "surgery" as a countable noun in American English, so there's no normal context where an indefinite article is possible.

 

[Rover_KE]

We don't normally use "surgery" as a countable noun in American English ...

It's probably the same in all varieties of English.

 

[GoesStation]

I wouldn't be shocked to discover that it's used countably in medical English.

 

[emsr2d2]

I think it's far more likely to be used countably in the plural than the singular. All of the following, demonstrating both countable and uncountable use, are possible:

How many surgeries have you had?
How may times have you had surgery?
He is due to have surgery on Tuesday.
She will need multiple surgeries over the next few months.

 

[Skrej]

How many ops/operations have you had?[/I]
I'd also use ops/operations in #4.

Interesting. I don't think any AmE speaker would ever use the shortened form 'ops' in any medical context. It is used in regards to military or government missions (i.e. 'black ops' or 'Spec. Ops', etc.)

Ask most Americans 'How many ops have you had', and you'll probably get a confused look. Some might try and parse it as something like 'how many government/military missions have you been involved in", although that wouldn't be the most natural way to ask that question, either. Gamers might think you were referring to any of the numerous first-person military shooter games or something, but I think mostly you'd just get asked for clarification.

I actually had to re-read Piscean's final comments a second time to make the connection.

 

[Rover_KE]

I've been hearing medics using 'procedure' (both countably and un-) in recent years as a catch-all term for operations, surgery, treatments, investigations, scans etc.