EIGHT submissions in, and so far NOONE has gone the Space Pirate interpretation route…
Nine now?
TEN! (including yours - Thanks!)
In the U.S. if you want to imply a doctor is incompetent, you can call him or her a “quack”, like the word for a duck’s sound (no idea where that comes from).
Is there a similar word or phrase in the UK, or do you also use that word?
Yeah, we’d call him a quack. It probably stems from the US, but hey… you have better sitcoms.
Pigfender scrap the first one resending in few moments, thanks
Thought to be short for “quacksalver”, used by Sir Thomas Browne in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1648) to describe a hawker of patent (and mostly useless) medicines.
Etymology is conflicted. The standard one is from the old German “Quacksalber”, allegedly meaning “quicksilver”; mercury ointments were used to treat syphilis from the late C15 and didn’t really work. Problem is that mercury is Quecksilber in German…
The other etymology says it’s from “quack” – the quacking noises of a medicine salesman flogging his wares from the back of a cart – and “salve”, then as now an ointment.
Either way, a damn good word.
Interesting. Nice bit of info, Michael! Thanks for that. 
Okay revised copy sent off now thinks time for glass of wine.
JEALOUS!
Excellent. Glad it’s not just American slang. I’m done with the first draft (currently at 2,247 words). Going to take a short break and then do a quick edit and hope that it’s sufficient. I should be submitting it in about 2 hours.
Lol, let me know if I can do anything else to help, sigh will stick to one glass just in case:))
Final edit submitted too. Good luck to the rest of you, guys!
V.
okay. missed the first deadline, running pellmell towards the second. on the last leg. a proof then final. 2 hrs tops. or, so i think. i thought i’d never make 1000 words. i like this character. 
Oh! We weren’t supposed to go there? 
First deadline?! Isn’t that about 3 1/2 hours away? Ack!
Mine’s in.
Thanks!
Thousand beans in the pot; now I just have to stew them for a while, let them rot a bit and attract some flies.
Let 'em simmer. We have a little while.
Incidentally, inbetween everything else, I have managed to get my “better than nothing” section together. Now I have 2.5 hrs to turn it into a “better than awesome” one.
Or something.
ELEVEN NOW IN.
(FOURTEEN TO GO)
Done. It should arrive via email shortly.
Collapses into a puddle