When I sold this 1902 KEVII official stamp on eBay, I described it as having a "bold full-date upright Liverpool cancel" and mentioned to the winning bidder that it had a "ditzel" that might be removed to enhance the cosmetic appearance, though it wouldn't add to the substantial monetary value.
The new owner (in Glasgow) messaged me back his pleasure re the stamp but asked for clarification on the word "ditzel," which was new to him. This surprised me, as I have used the term my entire adult life, so I did some research. I couldn't find it in my OED, nor in my Random House dictionary. Thence to the internet, where I found this in a
StackExchange post about orthography, asking whether "ditzel" is a "real word":
"When I was a Cardiology fellow at UMass Medical Center, there was a technician who would use a certain word to mean "a little". It sounded like /a ditzle/. I never asked her how it was spelled and later when I tried to look for the spelling in dictionaries, I never found it. The context would be something like: "Can you see any regurgitation on the screen?", "Just a "ditzle", meaning "very little"." ...
[a reply]: "Although not found in Dorland's Medical Dictionary, the term ditzel is universally recognized among radiologists as a very small nodule found in the lung. ... The origins of this word are obscure." [Mundsen RF, Hess KR. “Ditzels” on Chest CT: Survey of Members of the Society of Thoracic Radiology. AJR 2001; 176:1363-1369.]
Since I spent 30 professional years examining chest xrays with radiologists, that may be where I picked up the term, but it's not unique to radiology. Again, from the StackExchange post:
"In surgery we use the term "ditzel" to mean "a little nothing" or a piece of small, inconsequential tissue. For example, surgeon wipes instrument on sponge, leaving small globule of tissue. Nurse asks "Is this a specimen?", surgeon replies "No, just a ditzel. " Meaning it's nothing, junk, unknown and can be ignored."
I passed that observation on to an experienced pathologist, who said that in pathology laboratories, specimens are occasionally sorted into categories for examination: surgical specimens, small biopsies, and the incidental "ditzels."
So, it is a "real word," in the category of jargon.
Jargon or technical language is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The context is usually a particular occupation (that is, a certain trade, profession, vernacular or academic field), but any ingroup can have jargon.
Lots more interesting information, and many examples (with links to jargon glossaries), at that Wikipedia link.
Question for readers: in your experience, does the term "ditzel" extend beyond the medical field to other professional or technical areas? Just curious.