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425 IN THIS ISSUES... (see article on pp 546) Comment on: Quimp: a word meaning “quality of life impairment” A neologism is a new word or phrase that is not yet used regularly by most speakers and writers (1). Many famous writers proposed their neologisms to the public: Shakespeare, Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, William Thackeray’s, Geoffrey Chaucer, Dostoyevsky, Sydney Porter (O. Henry), etc. Some of those words are still in use, meanwhile, others remained in their books only. Neologisms are common in medicine. For example: Selman Waksman first used the word antibiotic as a noun (2) and Casimir Funk and his “vitamine” transformed later into shorter form “vitamin” (3). Neologisms remind us that language is not something set in stone, but an evolving body of work, subject to adjustment, deletions, additions, and change. As new things are invented, and as slang becomes acceptable, and new technologies emerge, new words must fill the gaps in language. Neologisms are a reflection of language’s ability to grow and evolve with time, culture, and technology (1) Of course, we can’t predict the destiny of any “fresh” neologism but those neologisms that are needed to re- flect a distinct new phenomenon have better chances to “survive” and live as long as the phenomenon by itself. According to Finlay’s Correspondence in this issue (4) the main purpose of proposing a new word to mean “quality of life impairment” is to facilitate the integra- tion of thinking about quality of life (QoL) into routine clinical practice. Growing interest to QoL studies, a wide range of reasons for QoL assessment (5) and the authority of Prof. Finlay give a good chance for acceptance of a new word. QUIMP belongs to a specific type of neologism – “portmanteau”. According to the Encyclopaedia Britan- nica a portmanteau word is a word composed of parts of two or more words, such as chortle from chuck- le and snort and motel from motor and hotel. The term portmanteau was first used by Lewis Carroll (6). Thus QUIMP is composed of quality and impairment. Its bre- vity is an obvious advantage but it is unfortunate that the word life is not represented in this construction. As doc- tors we have primary goal to protect the life of the patient, meanwhile, quality and impairment are secondary in this context. Therefore, I have the courage to ask Prof. Finlay to add “L” to his word. Whilst, “QUALIMP” is probably a registered trademark, “QULIMP” or “QUIMPL” are possible variants. The future of a new word depends on all of us. We can use it in our publications and facilitate colleagues to use it in their work. REFERENCES 1. Neologism. Available from: http://literaryterms.net/neolo- gism. Access Date: 02.03.2017. 2. Clardy J, Fischbach M, Currie C. The natural history of anti- biotics. Curr Biol 2009; 19: R437–R441. 3. Piro A, Tagarelli G, Lagonia P, Tagarelli A, Quattrone A. Casi- mir Funk: his discovery of the vitamins and their deficiency disorders. Ann Nutr Metab 2010; 57: 85–88. 4. Finlay AY. Quimp: a word meaning “quality of life impair- ment”. Acta Derm Venereol 2017; 97: 546–547. 5. Finlay AY, Salek MS, Abeni D, Tomás Aragonés L, van Cra- nenburgh OD, Evers AWM et al. Why quality of life mea- surement is important in dermatology clinical practice: An expert-based Opinion Statement by the EADV Task Force on Quality of Life. J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol 2016 Sep 29. [Epub ahead of print]. 6. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Avaliable from: https://www. britannica.com/topic/portmanteau-word. Access Date: 02.03.2017. Pavel V Chernyshov Chair of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology Task Force on Quality of Life and Patient Oriented Outcomes, Department of Dermatology and Venereology, National Medical University, Kiev, Ukraine. E-mail: [email protected] doi: 10.2340/00015555-2652 Have you measured the patient’s quimp? Back in the early 1990s Professor Andrew Y. Finlay presented the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI), a questionnaire with 10 questions to be used for evalua- tion of quality of life (QoL) in different skin diseases. The instrument is easy to use in clinical practice and today there are several hundred publications were DLQI has been used. The instrument has also been further de- veloped, e.g. to be used by children and their families. Although there is much focus on QoL and changes/ variations in QoL during for example treatment of skin diseases, we are missing a vocabular that is easy to use when describing QoL impairment, in fact we are missing a simple name for it. In this issue of ActaDV Professor Andrew Y. Finlay (1) presents a new word, quimp, and he suggests that the name of QoL impairment should be quimp. He presents convincing argumentation for the use of quimp. Once again, he has developed a concept that is easy to use and the word quimp will probably be rapidly incorporated in the vocabular among persons interested in QoL problems. How is the patient’s quimp? REFERENCE 1. Finlay AY. Quimp: a word meaning “quality of life impair- ment”. Acta Derm Venereol 2017; 97: 546–547. Magnus Lindberg Section Editor doi: 10.2340/00015555-2651 This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license. www.medicaljournals.se/acta Journal Compilation © 2017 Acta Dermato-Venereologica. Acta Derm Venereol 2017; 97: 425