How to Pronounce Chauffeur Fracture

Say it like this: "shoh-FUR FRAK-chur." The first word sounds like the French word for driver (which is where the name comes from), and the second word rhymes with "crack." The stress falls on the second syllable of the first word: shoh-**FUR**.

Many people stress the first syllable and say "SHOH-fur fracture," but that's incorrect. The correct stress is on the second syllable: shoh-**FUR** fracture. Also, some people try to pronounce the first word like English "chauffeur" with a "ch" sound at the start, but it actually sounds more like "shoh."

Break it like this: chauf-**feur** frac-**ture**. That's two syllables in the first word and two in the second, for a total of four syllables. The stressed syllable is "feur" in the first word.

The term comes from French: "chauffeur" means "driver." It got this name because the injury was historically common in early car drivers whose wrists were struck by the car's hand crank when it kicked back during starting. The name stuck even though hand cranks are no longer used.

Fracture is a medical word that simply means "a break or crack in a bone." It comes from Latin and is one of the most common medical terms you'll hear. So when you hear "Chauffeur Fracture," you're hearing about a specific type of bone break.

These are anatomical terms for part of your wrist bone (the radius bone). The "styloid process" is a small, pointy bump on the bone, and "radial" means it's on the thumb side of your wrist. You don't need to memorize these, but knowing they refer to a specific wrist bone part helps you understand where this fracture occurs.

You might hear a doctor say: "The X-ray shows a Chauffeur Fracture of the wrist," or "This type of injury is called a Chauffeur Fracture because of its historical origin." The term is used to name and identify a specific kind of wrist break.

It's also called a "radial styloid fracture" because that's the exact bone location being described in medical terms. Both names refer to the same injury, but "Chauffeur Fracture" is the more interesting name because of its history.