# Complaint about Smelly Foods **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 30, 2001, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complaint-about-smelly-foods/74218 "2001-07-30T13:20:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2001, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complaint-about-smelly-foods/74218/21 "2001-07-30T18:15:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by magdalene \* > \*\* I must flee its noisome aura. Please my friend, hold my hair as the waves of nausea shake me and I kneel on the clammy tile awaiting the dreaded reversal of peristalsis, the agony of retching, the burning of stomach acids in the back of my throat. \*\* \<–making note. Send sample of pure sulphur from chemical plant shoot, on over to **Magdalene** ’s house tomorrow… 😃 Cartooniverse ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2001, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complaint-about-smelly-foods/74218/22 "2001-07-30T19:15:25Z")
From [m-w.com](http://m-w.com) Main Entry: nau·seous Pronunciation: 'no-sh&s, 'no-zE-&s Function: adjective Date: 1612 1 : causing nausea or disgust : NAUSEATING 2 : affected with nausea or disgust - nau·seous·ly adverb - nau·seous·ness noun usage **Those who insist that nauseous can properly be used only in sense 1 and that in sense 2 it is an error for nauseated are mistaken.** Current evidence shows these facts: nauseous is most frequently used to mean physically affected with nausea, usually after a linking verb such as feel or become; figurative use is quite a bit less frequent. Use of nauseous in sense 1 is much more often figurative than literal, and this use appears to be losing ground to nauseating. Nauseated is used more widely than nauseous in sense 2. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2001, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complaint-about-smelly-foods/74218/23 "2001-07-30T19:32:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by OpalCat \* > \*\*From [m-w.com](http://m-w.com) > > Main Entry: nau·seous > Pronunciation: 'no-sh&s, 'no-zE-&s > Function: adjective > Date: 1612 > 1 : causing nausea or disgust : NAUSEATING > 2 : affected with nausea or disgust > > - nau·seous·ly adverb > - nau·seous·ness noun > usage **Those who insist that nauseous can properly be used only in sense 1 and that in sense 2 it is an error for nauseated are mistaken.** Current evidence shows these facts: nauseous is most frequently used to mean physically affected with nausea, usually after a linking verb such as feel or become; figurative use is quite a bit less frequent. Use of nauseous in sense 1 is much more often figurative than literal, and this use appears to be losing ground to nauseating. Nauseated is used more widely than nauseous in sense 2. \*\* Yeah, but I still don’t like it. Maybe it would be for the best if this word dropped out to “nauseated” and “nauseating”. ---
**Author:** ![kabbes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e99b99/32.png) [@kabbes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kabbes)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2001, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complaint-about-smelly-foods/74218/24 "2001-07-31T11:00:00Z")
**magdalene** - thankyou. From the bottom of my stomach. So, as **lucwarm** says, to speak. And I “feh” on all of you who wish to take issue with my taking issue with the use of the word nauseaous. Feh. pan ---
**Author:** ![herownself](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8baadc/32.png) [@herownself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/herownself)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2001, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complaint-about-smelly-foods/74218/25 "2001-07-31T23:27:48Z")
Last summer I worked as a scientific programmer. (read:grad student who knows SAS) One of my office mates was a full-on hippie-style ultra-geek programmer. Very nice guy, no social skills. For lunch, at least once a week and often more than that, he would bring a can of tuna and saltines for lunch. Or, a can of kippers and saltines. You get the drift. The thing is, I CANNOT stand the smell of tuna or any other canned fishes. Like **lucwarm** and eggsalad, it makes me need to puke. My husband and I have a special negotiation ritual we do when he cannot resist his craving for tuna salad sandwiched (shudder). It involves much teeth brushing and no kissing at all. Period. We sit on different sofas for the rest of the evening. So I very nicely asked him to please take his food into the lunchroom as it was making me ill. He refused, as he liked to play on a message board at lunch (please god, not this one). I had to leave the office and my computer for the duration of his lunch. My bosses, at least, were sympathetic, he was a known problem. I flat out refused to do any work while he was eating that stuff, and refused to have him dictate when I took MY lunch break. That half hour was on them. To my surprise, they agreed. I feel for you, **luc**. ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2001, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complaint-about-smelly-foods/74218/26 "2001-07-31T23:51:06Z")
Well, at least you have a lunchroom. Here, we have an open floor plan and no lunch rooms (and the conference rooms are too busy to reliably use for eating). ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_Ellis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/977dab/32.png) [@Michael\_Ellis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_Ellis)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complaint-about-smelly-foods/74218/27 "2001-08-01T00:15:42Z")
First off, “nauseate”: **nauseate** /'naw-see-it, -z-/ _v._ M17 [L _nauseat_- pa. ppl stem of _nauseare_, f. _nausea_, after Gk _nausian_: see NAUSEA, -ATE[sup]3[/sup]] **1.** _v.t._ Reject (food, etc.) with loathing or a feeling of nausea; _fig._ loathe, abhor, feel a strong aversion to. Now _rare_. **2.** _v.t._ Affect (a person or thing) with nausea and aversion, create a loathing in. Freq. as _nauseating_ ppl a. M17. **3.** _v.i._ Become affected with nausea, feel sick or disgusted _(at)_. M17. [sub] **2** M. SEYMOUR Only one thing nauseated him as much as the modern bathing suit. G. NAYLOR I found treating a grown man like a five-year-old a little nauseating.[/sub] Second, “nauseous”: **nauseous** /'naw-si-es, -z-/ _a._ E17 [L _nauseosus_, f. as NAUSEA + OUS] **1.** Affected with nausea, sick, nauseated. Formerly, also inclined to nausea. E17. **2.** Causing nausea; offensive to the taste or smell; _fig._ loathsome, disgusting, repulsive. E17. [sub] **1** P. MONETTE The drug made him nauseous. **2** M. WESLEY Mylo took the nauseous brew.[/sub] Third, Hi Opal!😃 ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complaint-about-smelly-foods/74218/28 "2001-08-01T00:27:14Z")
My lovely wife **katrina** isn’t exaggerating above re our tuna arrangements. I love it. She can’t sprint away from it fast enough. 'Course, I think bacon’s vaguely gross, so it all evens out. Changing subject, more along the lines of the OP– I used to work at a software company. (Well, I work at one now. Point is, different one. Oh, never mind.) When we moved the company from its original building into a downtown skyscraper, one of the founding executives set down a condition for the new layout: All of the microwaves were centralized on the kitchen floor. No microwaves at all anywhere else in the building. Why? Because he hated the smell of microwave popcorn, and he figured that if you had to take an elevator and a five minute walk, either the aroma would dissipate by the time you got back, or you wouldn’t do it in the first place. Of course, this was a company full of highly-paid programmers and hard-to-recruit technical experts (the company made medical software), so the no-microwaves policy lasted about eight seconds before people started bringing in their own and hiding them all over the place. The executive in question basically never left his office… ---
**Author:** ![BoBettie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@BoBettie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BoBettie)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complaint-about-smelly-foods/74218/29 "2001-08-01T01:49:20Z")
Can I take this opportunity to say that the language freaks on this board drive me INSANE!!! This poor guy wants to bitch about someones stinky lunch habits, and he gets all this flack about his word choice. For the love of God, when he smells the egg salad sandwich, he wants to do the technicolor yawn! 'Nuff said Thank you. Zette PS- we avoid this issue at work by not being allowed to eat at our desks. If someone eats a stinky lunch, they are appropriately humiliated and threatened, and it does not happen again. I love being a white collar worker in a blue collar factory! ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_Ellis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/977dab/32.png) [@Michael\_Ellis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_Ellis)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complaint-about-smelly-foods/74218/30 "2001-08-01T01:57:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Zette \* > **Can I take this opportunity to say that the language freaks on this board drive me INSANE!!!** That’s why I pulled out my copy of the OED. Since most people regard this as the ultimate reference work about the English language I thought I’d post the definitions and shut everyone else up. ---
**Author:** ![chique](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@chique](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chique)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complaint-about-smelly-foods/74218/31 "2001-08-01T05:43:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pcubed \* > **Two words: Microwaved Fish** Bah. Let me cook up some lutefisk for you and _then_ see if you bitch about egg salad 😉 ---
**Author:** ![kabbes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e99b99/32.png) [@kabbes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kabbes)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complaint-about-smelly-foods/74218/32 "2001-08-01T09:27:11Z")
**Zette, Zette, Zette**. This was the OP in its _entirity_: > [@](#): > > Please don’t eat smelly foods at your desk at work. There’s a lunchroom, ya know. > > Your daily egg sandwich literally makes me nauseous every time I walk by. Not much to work with, was there? So I could have ignored it, but it amused me to “misunderstand” one of the words in the post instead. This has apparently kept the thread alive more than the original expression of distaste did. You can believe me that it is not my normal practice to pick on individual words, but in a 28 word post ya gotta roll with what yer given. pan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complaint-about-smelly-foods/74218.md?page=1)