How is the predicate of the verb 'to diagnose' formed? [closed]
So often nowadays one hears people say He was diagnosed with walliballi disease.
Is this grammatically correct? What does a doctor diagnose? My own instinct, supported by the OED is that a doctor diagnoses an illness, or a medical condition - he/she does not diagnose a person.
The OED definition* of the verb, with examples is:
a. trans. To make a diagnosis of (a disease), to distinguish and determine its nature from its symptoms; to recognize and identify by careful observation.
1861 A. Wynter Our Social Bees 339, I was enabled to diagnose the complaint at once.
1877 F. T. Roberts Handbk. Med. (ed. 3) I. 231 Articular rheumatism has also to be diagnosed from the other forms.
1887 Homeop. World 1 Nov. 497, I diagnosed chronic jaundice.
So can it be correct to say He was diagnosed with...?
Would it not be more correct to say:
He was found by diagnosis to have.....
Or what would be an alternative way of saying the same thing?
*It would be less than honest not to include the caveat in the most recent edition of OED: 'This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1895)' (Contributed by Edwin Ashworth)
Had the OP been aware of such caveat he would naturally have included it. It does not appear in the current online edition. And whilst on the subject of 'honesty', have the editors of this post ever actually seen such a caveat in print? (OP's response).
OLD lists the following usages with the verb diagnose:
- to say exactly what an illness or the cause of a problem is:
Usages:
- diagnose (something) The test is used to diagnose a variety of diseases.
- diagnose something as something The illness was diagnosed as cancer.
- diagnose somebody with something He has recently been diagnosed with angina.
- diagnose somebody (as) something He was diagnosed (as) a diabetic when he was 64.
- diagnose somebody + adj./noun He was diagnosed (a) diabetic.
and diagnosis:
- diagnosis (of something) the act of discovering or identifying the exact cause of an illness or a problem.
Usages:
- diagnosis of lung cancer
- They are waiting for the doctor's diagnosis.
- An accurate diagnosis was made after a series of tests.
- He was found by diagnosis to have does not sound appropriate as a sentence, he was diagnosed with or the diagnosis was are more appropriate alternatives.
- Ngram: diagnosed with, diagnosed as
The supplement to the OED records an earlier example of "diagnosis," from Phil Inductive Sci, 1840: "The Characteristick has been termed by some English botanists the diagnosis of plants...." Not the diagnosis of plant diseases. Thus I submit by the OED's own historical criterion, "diagnose" may take as its object either the patients (in this case, floral) or their maladies.
That said the reported incidence these days of walliballi disease is nothing short of alarming.