Posted 2/2/2021 11:45 AM (GMT -5)
We have of course all heard the term "benign" in reference to a tumor, and hearing a tumor so designated is certainly a welcome thing.
And while it follows that if a tumor is found to be "benign," then referring to it as a "benignancy" (the opposite of a "malignancy," a term much more commonly used), would seem a perfectly natural thing to do.
But doesn't it sound a bit odd, though, as well intentioned a term as "benignancy" might be? First, it's a word that I for one had never heard used before, until I came across it the other night, and it turns out that it's actually a general purpose word, not just a medical term, and can be defined generally as
the quality or state of kindness and benevolence
But then, over time, the word came to be used in a medical setting, meaning
the state of being benign, that is, denoting the mild character of an illness, or the nonmalignant character of a neoplasm, and so behaving
But then I began to wonder why in actual practice we usually refer to tumors as either "benign" or "malignant."
So why don't we, following logic, refer to them as being either "benignant" or "malignant?" How did the word "benign" get into the mix?
Well, one answer I got from an article, and it sounds plausible, was that the medical community felt that "benignant" and "malignant" sounded too much alike, especially to patients uninformed in medical terminology, and the simple sound difference between "benign" and "malignant" made it clear which tumor diagnosis was in play. Thus confusion was avoided.
Or, as the article put it:
"In English there are, among others, two pairs of nearly equivalent words: “benign/benignant” and “malign/malignant.” Curiously, in medicine (and more particularly in pathology) we have chosen to use the shorter of the former pair and the longer of the latter pair to contrast the behavior of certain diseases, especially neoplasia. We speak or write of "benign" (rather than "benignant") tumors in contrast to "malignant" (rather than "malign") tumors." (Boldface mine).
But perhaps this is all getting a bit pedantic, so I'll leave it at that.
Although I suppose one could draw some satisfaction, if ever asked the question "Say, what was the story with that tumor?"
One could always say "No problem. It turned out to be a benignancy."