To the Editor: The April 2009 article by Jafferany, Feng, and Hornung and the lighthearted rebuttal by Burgdorf in this issue raise interesting questions about the etymology of medical terms with Greek roots. A current Greek–English medical dictionary lists both terms in question. In modern Greek, however, the word for bite is “da????” (translated as dagono), and the ancient Greek word is “d???” (translated as dakno). Because the roots of most medical terms are ancient Greek, we agree with Dr Burgdorf that “trichodaknomania” is the preferred term for the disorder in dispute. Nonetheless, we acknowledge that both terms will remain “Greek” to most of us.
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