Hi everyone, having a day at home writing at last! :) making some nice progress with 3rd chapter - even finding some significances! woohooo!

Anyway, i'm detailing some patients, and I want to say that "--/-- are tea total, compared with --/--- consuming....". Unfortunately, i feel that tea total is a little informal, and wondered if anyone had any better phrases I could use?
I know I could say do not consume alcohol, or abstain etc, but I wondered if there was a noun for this other than T-total!!!!

I have very quickly googled this before deciding this would be the best place to hopefully get some valuable feedback, but nothing good came up!

Cheers guys,
KT :-s

I think it's ok to use it, I don't think it's considered informal. By the way, it's spelt 'teetotal', that might be why you didn't find anything decent on google :p

Thanks Melsie! Haha, maybe you're right, I was so busy gulping my cup of TEA I didn't even think about that! It does seem to have been in existence since the mid 1800s, so I would doubt it is classed as slang anymore!?
I shall keep it in for now and see what happens when my supervisor lays eyes on it ;)

Cheers

what did you find out about teetotallers? I don't drink (well I drink about 1 glass of wine every 4 months) - I hope you didn't find they go crazy! - maybe I should have wine tonight hmmm.

Isn't it 'teetotal'?

Anyway, I'm not aware of a suitable synonym. I'd probably go ahead and use the term (I think it's well-established enough not to be too informal), although I do wonder if it has implications of having actually *pledged* not to drink rather than just happening not to drink... I'm not sure everyone who doesn't drink would describe themselves as teetotal. (I might well not drink any alcohol this year or next, but I don't think I'd call myself teetotal.)

Sorry, that probably wasn't much help, was it?

hmm, don't worry sneaks! nothing serious, just the usual cancer drinking facts! :( researching cancer of the oeosphagus, and those patients drank more than controls!

Magictime, you've just hit the nail on the head, i think that's what I was actually worrying about in writing teetotal, rather than using the term. As in questionaires they have said 0 units per week, yet that does not mean they are classed as teetotal. I too like to have a drink occasionally with friends, but only once every few months realistically - certainly not teetotal though!!

In retrospect use a different tac, and say that 0 units/week were reported from these patients, or something similar!?

ta :-(

on a different but related note - are you looking for funding later on as joseph rowntree foundation has projects availble about alcohol etc. - just thought you might be interested.

Thanks Sneaks, would love funding but I'm actually a microbiologist! just trying to find funding or postdoc position at the moment, fingers crossed!

lol I am assuming that's different. I hope you haven't found anything about drinking way too much pepsi max and cancer :$

heehee, think you'll be safe! I hope so otherwise I'm doomed too :p