Haematology

The sixteenth entry is la thrombose veineuse profonde, and it is the clearest place on this page to learn a rule that governs almost every other entry. « Deep vein thrombosis » is built the way English builds technical names: the head noun comes last, everything in front of it is piled up as a modifier, and the phrase has to be read from right to left. French does the opposite. It puts the head noun first and hangs the qualifiers behind it, each one an adjective that agrees — veineuse and profonde, both feminine because thrombose is. The two phrases are exact mirrors, word for word, which is why even the abbreviations come out reversed: « DVT » on one side, TVP on the other. The same mirror runs through the list. « Blood film » is le frottis sanguin, « platelet count » is la numération plaquettaire. Note what French does instead of stacking two nouns: it derives an adjective. Where no adjective exists it reaches for a preposition, de in le don du sang and en in la carence en fer, but it almost never simply parks one noun in front of another.