Recently I used the term medicine students to mean students of medicine. This was corrected to medical students. I googled and found that the term I chose is not really used.
However I still hear computer science students or Japanese language students. Why not medicine students then?
Answer
It used to be the case that there were ‘physical students’, ‘mathematical students’, ‘philosophical students’, and ‘historical students’. Somewhere in the middle of the 20th century, these switched to ‘physics students’, ‘mathematics students’, ‘philosophy students’, and ‘history students’. Consider the following Google Ngram.
I suspect that ‘medical students’ did not switch because it was so common it had become a set phrase by the time of the switchover. And it was always ‘law students’ and not ‘legal students’.
Of course, this answers one question at the price of bringing up another: why the mid-20th century switch?
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : liori , Answer Author : Peter Shor
