# Origin of "Lurgy Fever" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [December 1, 2017, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-lurgy-fever/803252 "2017-12-01T15:43:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2017, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-lurgy-fever/803252/1 "2017-12-01T15:43:02Z")
[In today’s column concerning versions of “tag”](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3371/why-does-everybody-in-the-world-play-tag), Cecil brings up the English version, where the person tagged has caught “lurgy fever” and gets rid of it by touching the next target. According to WordOrigins, > [@](#): > > Fever-lurden is an old name for laziness. Lurdan is a Middle English word for a bad or lazy person, and a fever-lurden is the supposed disease that makes them so. In Scots dialect it was known as fever-lurgy at least into the nineteenth century if not later. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2017, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-lurgy-fever/803252/2 "2017-12-02T05:27:58Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > [In today’s column concerning versions of “tag”](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3371/why-does-everybody-in-the-world-play-tag), Cecil brings up the English version, where the person tagged has caught “lurgy fever” and gets rid of it by touching the next target. > According to WordOrigins, Perhaps, but “the lurgies”, sometimes “the dreaded lurgies and the plinge” turned up from time to time on the highly-esteemed Goon show. Ying-tong-iddle-i-po to all, and hope the batter puddings don’t bite!! ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2017, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-lurgy-fever/803252/3 "2017-12-02T18:10:14Z")
How weird. Not ten minutes ago I was reading the British New Scientist magazine. It had a cartoon about a new drug that couldn’t be released because all the side-effects were so old-fashioned. One of them was lurgy. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered the word before and had no idea what it meant. In that context, therefore, what is “gyp”? ---
**Author:** ![Weedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/weedy/32/301_2.png) [@Weedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weedy)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2017, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-lurgy-fever/803252/4 "2017-12-02T21:06:14Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > How weird. Not ten minutes ago I was reading the British New Scientist magazine. It had a cartoon about a new drug that couldn’t be released because all the side-effects were so old-fashioned. One of them was lurgy. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered the word before and had no idea what it meant. > > In that context, therefore, what is “gyp”? Something that’s giving you gyp is something that aches, like your back or your feet. ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2017, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-lurgy-fever/803252/5 "2017-12-02T22:59:56Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > In that context, therefore, what is “gyp”? Could it be _Fr. la grippe_, aka the grip, as in, the flu? ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2017, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-lurgy-fever/803252/6 "2017-12-03T04:36:09Z")
> [@Weedy](#): > > Something that’s giving you gyp is something that aches, like your back or your feet. And, lest anyone worry that it’s a naughty word, it is believed to be derived from a dialect use of “gee-up”. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2017, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-lurgy-fever/803252/7 "2017-12-03T11:12:22Z")
I understand “giving me gyp” as referring to the constant/repetitive nature of the pain or irritation - also capable of metaphorical application, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2017, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-lurgy-fever/803252/8 "2017-12-03T19:38:41Z")
Wasn’t this a Spike Lee movie? ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-lurgy-fever/803252/9 "2017-12-04T06:51:41Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > [In today’s column concerning versions of “tag”](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3371/why-does-everybody-in-the-world-play-tag), Cecil brings up the English version, where the person tagged has caught “lurgy fever” and gets rid of it by touching the next target. > According to WordOrigins, I always thought Lurgy was a nonsense word _The Goon Show_ made up. ---
**Author:** ![eastcheap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8491ac/32.png) [@eastcheap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eastcheap)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2017, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-lurgy-fever/803252/10 "2017-12-10T00:44:27Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Wasn’t this a Spike Lee movie? Or maybe Spike Milligan. I’m always getting those two mixed up. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2017, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-lurgy-fever/803252/11 "2017-12-10T05:29:06Z")
Spike Milligan was from an Irish family, so it’s not impossible he used a word he’d heard in childhood. Or who knows, it might have been circulating in the Army as slang for any unspecified disease. ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2017, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-lurgy-fever/803252/12 "2017-12-10T06:12:25Z")
Yeah, lurgy. A malady that does not have a diagnostic name, mostly an upper respiratory infection that lays you low but does not threaten to kill you. I get lurgies…when everyone else claims they have THE FLU, or worse. Wankers.