I'm struggling with how to say "he had surgery/an operation on his knee." Actually, the knee bit I'm fine on...it's the whole "he had surgery/an operation" thing that's getting me.

Another struggle: "The doctor had to operate."

Got a conversation group tomorrow (yes, Audrey is working hard on her "Líofa 2013" commitment!) and want to be prepared with my news of the month, which pretty much has to do with my dog's ACL surgery.

Redwolf

Duine (nó mada) a chur faoi scian

Obráid a dfhéanamh ar duine (nó mada)

Those and:

Chuaigh sé faoi scian "He had/underwent an operation"
Cuireadh faoi scian é "He was operated on."

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

GRMA! I had forgotten "faoin scian"!

As far as specifics go, I think I'm going to stick with "ghortaigh sé a ghlúin," rather than try to figure out how to say "anterior cruciate ligament rupture"

Redwolf

Probably better that way, but for practice' sake:

"anterior" tosaigh
"cruciate ligament" ballnasc croiseach
"rupture" maidhm

So, perhaps:

maidhm bhallnaisc chroisigh thosaigh

But I'm not very strong on triple genitives ...

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Ballnasc? an focal nádúrtha é sin nó cionn do na focla aisteacha sin a cumadh in oifig i mBÁC aríst?
Tá cuma chontráilte air (nasc baill a bheadh nádúrtha ag Gaedhil as an lae innibh ). Ach amháin más focal Sean-Ghaedhlice é.

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

Okay, fine Lughaidh, go ahead and make a quadruple genitive out of it. (But how about actually showing us how it might then be done in that case, rather than just making less-than-helpful throwaway criticisms without attempting to solve the problem?)

By the way, ball-nasc is in Dinneen as "a ligament that connects the bones in the joints." I'd call that fairly established even though you might like to think it is unnatural for Irish. Most medical terminology feels "unnatural" to native speakers in any language (they'd be more likely to say "He has a bad knee", or the like.) but that doesn't mean the technical terminology can't exist side-by-side with the colloquial terms.

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

I agree. In fact, normally I wouldn't go into such detail about an injury even in English, except that ACL ruptures are so common in dogs (in fact, speaking to an English speaker who isn't a medical person, I probably wouldn't even use the word "rupture," but rather "tear" or "break").*

Many medical terms (as well as technical terms) are of recent coinage in most languages in any case. I seriously doubt there's a native Gaeltacht term for "Tibeal Plateau Leveling Osteotomy" either, but I bet Irish-speaking vets are doing them!

Redwolf

* Not that I'm a medical person, but when you have dogs, you spend a lot of time talking to vets.

Please tell me it's Líofa 2015 otherwise I'm screwed!

if it's in Dinneen I guess it's a real word
Prefixing nouns to nouns is either Old Irish or office Irish (because it's the same order as English...)... Because today's Gaeltacht speakers would never create "new words" in this way, precisely because prefixing stuff is Old Irish and hasn't be used for more than 1000 years.

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne