So, the guy on the other side of the open-air cubical is coughing his lungs out and the Beancounter is retching in the communal bathroom. No one can go home because they don’t qualify for sick days and the company didn’t pay for a holiday last week.
It’s only a matter of time…
So I was thinking about the names my family had for diseases and illnesses. You know, when your mom would see you about to put something in your mouth, she’d yell, “Don’t eat that! You’ll get scropula!” Or, “You don’t look too good. You coming down with the ephizuti?”
What were diseases/illness/conditions called in your family? What did your parents warn you of?
Isn’t that from the movie “Honeysuckle Rose”? Gene Hackman keeps telling the doctor that his wife is coming down with ‘the epizootic (pronouncing it eppy-zoo- tick)in the 4th dimension’ or some such. The doctor finally says to him, “Are you trying to say ‘epizootic’ (pronounced correctly as epuh-zuh-wah’-tick)? Because that’s a disease of animals.”
No way, the Creeping Crud has got to refer to skin related disorders. Folliculitis, scabies, excema…these things can be Creeping Crud, but nothing gastrointestinal, that’s just silly!
Some archaic terms I’ve read include “the vapors” and “the creeping fantods” and “the palpitations.” It was never clear EXACTLY what those terms referred to, but some of them probably referred to the stuff Terrorcotta’s on about.
Actually, Terrorcotta has understated how bad it is at her office. Her boss is a notorious cheapskate who opposes privacy on general principles, and he has all the art staff’s desks in a cluster facing each other. So one person’s cough can spread to all the others so easily. Another employer might be worried about lost productivity, but this guy’s policy on sick days is so stingy that no one can afford to take a day off unless they are literally unable to get out of bed.
And they don’t stock the bathrooms with toilet paper too often, because they’re afraid the staff will steal it. Which, on their wages, they will.
As for ephizuti, I believe it was explained somewhere on the boards at some point that a severe epizootic of some kind struck the US early in the 20th century, with the result that many older people are familiar with that word when they otherwise wouldn’t be.
Ephizuti is something Evil Captor’s mother goes on about so I have only heard this word in the original heavy Southern dialect. My spelling is seriously influenced by that.
And yes, my boss sees widespread illness in our company as a money making move.
When I was a kid, my mom always warned me that if I didn’t eat enough fruits and vegetables, I would get rickets, scurvy, and beri-beri. I was in high school before I realized that these were realy diseases, and not just funny-sounding ones that she’d made up.
If I went barefoot outside, I would get ringworm. I think this is actually true.
If I opened my mouth outside when it was below freezing, my lungs would freeze. I don’t think this is true. I and the other girls at my bus stop chattered away all the time, whatever the season, and none of our lungs froze.
Why? ISTM that unhealthy workers would tend to produce more substandard work than healthy ones. Or is it the money he saves by having one fewer worker when there isn’t enough work to keep everyone completely busy?
