The Public Eye

We used to have much better names for airborne diseases when I was growing up, totally unlike now when every strain and mutation of the bug du jour is required to have its very own label.

Life was so much simpler then when you fell ill with something worse than a cold. You had two choices: the croup or the grippe and that about covered it.

Nowadays, we are compelled to give every respiratory ailment a distinctive name, presumably so when we are home hacking our brains out we'll know whether it was virus A, B, C or EI E-I-O that is to blame. Not that it makes any difference when you spend your day wondering whether you'll have any innards left tomorrow.

It isn't as if you're going to reflect on this at the decisive moment and say, "Hmmmm, this Bulgarian Goat Virus HM25 is nasty." It doesn't matter what its name is when we can't cure it anyway.

The swine flu, our most popular bug of late, is officially known as H1N1 flu, which sounds so sterile that it takes all the fun out of being sick. There's no romance to it.

You just can't tell people, "I have the H1N1" and expect a great deal of sympathy and understanding.

"Oh, really?" they say in response to your declaration. "How nice for you. Did you get the leather trim with that?"

On the other hand, having the grippe did not sound that exciting either. People would say, "Oh, he's got a touch of the grippe. It's no big deal." Meanwhile, you're wondering who moved the iron lung out of your closet and didn't tell you where they put it.

I suppose if someone said instead, "Oh, he's got the Series WD40 Grippe," others would take it more seriously and shake their heads, while wondering who has dibs on your desk should you fail to recover.

But really, only medical professionals and researchers care that the only distinction between Virus A and Virus A1 is that Virus A1 is apparently growing a tail. If you're sick, you're sick, regardless of how the virus has mutated, unless, of course, it's an X-Men mutation virus and the doctor tells you that you have a case of Wolverine-A/3. That would be something to worry about.

I appreciate the need for variety, but these differentiations are useless when we have no idea what they mean. What I'm saying is if we have to name these diseases, let's do it so we can understand it. Forget H1N1 et al, and let's hear it for Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie-Woogie Flu.