# "The Dreaded Lurgy" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 3, 2008, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dreaded-lurgy/439934 "2008-03-03T10:38:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![calm\_kiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@calm\_kiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/calm_kiwi)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dreaded-lurgy/439934/1 "2008-03-03T10:38:54Z")
I was reading the thread about wet hair and it’s debatable effects on one’s health (for the record I have naturally dead straight hair and leave home with it wet everyday, winter or summer. I am rarely sick). While reading I channeled/heard my Nana say “If you go out with wet hair you will catch the dreaded lurgy”. When anyone had a cold in my family they “had the lurgy”. The lurgy usually referred to cold-like syptoms, but it covered general illness too. My question is, is this a NZ expression, a British expression, an American expression or a ?(somewhere else) expression. Kiwi-English is very magpie-like, stealing a bit from here and a bit from there. Where does lurgy come from? ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dreaded-lurgy/439934/2 "2008-03-03T10:42:27Z")
English. It was originally a Goon Show joke, as far as I remember. The symptoms were that you got an uncontrollable urge to shout EEEE-YACKABOO! ---
**Author:** ![calm\_kiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@calm\_kiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/calm_kiwi)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dreaded-lurgy/439934/3 "2008-03-03T10:53:36Z")
[QUOTE=Scissorjack] English. It was originally a Goon Show joke, as far as I remember. The symptoms were that you got an uncontrollable urge to shout EEEE-YACKABOO! [/QUOTE] I like that answer! I was thinking it was some bastardisation of allergy. Goons is much better…though how my Nana caught on to the Goons is just too odd to think about, considering she actually believed it! Thanks to a fellow JAFA or a speedy reply. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![calm\_kiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@calm\_kiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/calm_kiwi)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dreaded-lurgy/439934/4 "2008-03-03T10:56:34Z")
Damn editing. Or should be for! 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dreaded-lurgy/439934/5 "2008-03-03T11:07:48Z")
**EEEE-YACKABOO!** ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dreaded-lurgy/439934/6 "2008-03-03T11:26:27Z")
[World Wide Words agrees,](http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-dre1.htm) but adds: > [@](#): > > there’s some evidence they borrowed an existing English dialect term, perhaps one they had heard in the Army during World War Two. The English Dialect Dictionary notes lurgy from northern England as an adjective meaning idle or lazy. This may well be linked with fever-largie, fever-lurden or fever-lurgan, a sarcastic dialect term for a supposed disease of idleness; this was recorded as still current in some places at the time the dictionary was compiled at the end of the nineteenth century (I mean that the term was still being used, but presumably the malady was lingering on as well). > > One can imagine Milligan and Sykes being tickled by the idea of an epidemic outbreak of idleness. ---
**Author:** ![seosamh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@seosamh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seosamh)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dreaded-lurgy/439934/7 "2008-03-03T19:23:17Z")
The show (actually entitled “Lurgi Strikes Britain”) was first broadcast on the 9th of November 1954 - fifty-three years ago! - and was co-written by the great Eric Sykes. A transcript may be seen [here](http://www.thegoonshow.co.uk/scripts/lurgi.html). Winds light to variable! ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dreaded-lurgy/439934/8 "2008-03-03T19:28:03Z")
You silly, twisted boy. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dreaded-lurgy/439934/9 "2008-03-03T19:30:46Z")
He’s fallen in the water! ---
**Author:** ![Myglaren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Myglaren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myglaren)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2008, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dreaded-lurgy/439934/10 "2008-03-03T21:34:52Z")
Show him a photograph of a five pound note. ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2008, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dreaded-lurgy/439934/11 "2008-03-04T00:43:57Z")
[QUOTE=Ice Wolf] This may well be linked with fever-largie, fever-lurden or fever-lurgan… [/QUOTE] I wonder if _largie_ is linked in some way with _lethargy_. Local corruption / modification? [QUOTE=Merriam-Webster] **Lethargy** Etymology: Middle English litargie, from Medieval Latin litargia, from Late Latin lethargia, from Greek lēthargia, from lēthargos forgetful, lethargic, irregular from lēthē [/quote] ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2008, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dreaded-lurgy/439934/12 "2008-03-04T01:22:06Z")
And now I’m wondering whether it’s related to the American [“logy”](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/logy), meaning sluggish, lethargic or dazed, and apparently of Dutch or Germanic origin. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2008, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dreaded-lurgy/439934/13 "2008-03-04T01:41:01Z")
More thoughts: if “lurgy” is a Northern English dialect word, that pehaps suggests a Scandinavian origin.