'Hasselhoff ' becomes Brit medical slang

LONDON, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- When actor David Hasselhoff hit his head on a chandelier ... while shaving ... little did he know he was about to become slang among British doctors.

Today, a "Hasselhoff" is jargon for when patients give bizarre explanations for injuries. It's an entry in a new dictionary of physician slang published in the British Medical Journal, London's Daily Telegraph said.

Also on the list: a "Father Jack" is a confused, elderly patient who shouts or won't stay in bed, named after Father Ted, a sitcom with a drunken priest. "Blamestorming" happens when medical teams try to find who to blame for errors, and a "Jack Bauer" is a doc who stays up working all hours, a la the lead character on the television series 24.

Palliative medicine consultant Paul Keeley began compiling the dictionary of medical jargon after working with younger physicians.

"I have always had an interest in language and I noticed that junior doctors seem to have picked up a whole vocabulary of language that older doctors like me don't have," he told the Daily Telegraph.