The Language of Viruses
“Language is a virus.”
- Laurie Anderson
The other day in the shower, I had a thought. (I do some of my best thinking in the shower. And singing. And, these days, it’s the only place I can be completely naked without someone objecting or arresting me.)
My thoughts were on language and how arbitrary and inconsistent it can be. (The English language, anyway. My Serbo-Croatian is rusty.)
And, specifically on our use of articles. And even more specifically, our use of articles when attached to describing viruses. (Yeah, I know, but stick with me.)
To wit:
“I caught a cold.”
“I caught the flu.”
“I caught Covid.”
W.
T.
F?
All three are viruses. No one says “I caught the cold.” Most, but not all, say “…the flu…” and Covid is still finding its way, with most saying “…Covid…”, with more than a few using “…the Covid…” but no one saying “…a Covid…”
And why does “Covid” get a capitalized brand name, while the flu and the a cold are lower-case generics?
Why this linguistic chaos?
<Editor’s Note: This is the point where a serious, credible journalist would write something like “So, I reached out to Dr. Harry McStickUpHisAss, Professor Emeritus of Liberal Tweed-Wearing Subaru-Driving Pipe-Smoking English Studies at Harvaleinceton University to get to the bottom of this FASCINATING language quirk.”
I am not that writer. I am far too lazy, I don’t know any English professors, and you all are reading this free of charge, so the financial incentive for me to do anything beyond the absolute bare minimum is de minimis.>
To find the definitive answer, I did what every serious, truth-seeking writer does: Google. And, came up with… nothing.
My horror at Google not having an answer was soon replaced with elation that it appears I am the very first person, on a planet of seven billion souls, to ask this silly important question.
There are quite a few credible, useful articles about how to tell the difference between symptoms of the three, but nothing that I could find about our sloppy, inconsistent and embarrassingly haphazard application of articles before each of these diseases.
And others:
“Cancer”
“A heart attack”
“A or the stomach flu” (why sticking “stomach” in there gives us a choice is another mystery for Dr. McStick.)
“The shingles or just shingles”
“She has the measles or the mumps, but just rubella, unless we use its other name, in which case she has the German measles.”
I could go on, ad nauseam, but you might get nauseous, but not the nausea, or possibly only a bit nauseous.
So next time you are chatting with or listening to a speaker whose first language is NOT English, cut them some slack. We’ve created and evolved a clusterfuck of dumpster fires of grammar rules, and I’m surprised even native English speakers have a clue as to what any of us are saying. And if anyone with an education or even an educated guess as to why this is, email me. Or if you know someone, have them email me. Or, if you think someone that smart would be annoyed at being bothered about such trivia, well, then never mind.