Just recently I was in a conversation with a number of UK mainlanders and we had a debate over what “tories” meant, apparently disproportionately ordinarily it refers to a political party and it’s not usual to use it as short for “territories” as I’ve used it (according to how the debate ended, it was half and half between them). And once again I’m reminded of how people feel to look back at their usage of a word/phrase over the years and cringe.

More tragically, me and a friend were embarrassed once upon realizing everyone was confusing “encephalitis” with “hydrocephalus” when talking to someone about their kid with hydrocephalus. Awkward because encephalitis is caused by HIV.

You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments
21 points

Is encephalitis caused only by HIV, though?

I seem to think it was a thing before HIV.

permalink
report
reply
23 points

You are correct. -itis just means inflammation or infection, encephalon just means brain. You can have encephalitis caused by multiple things, viruses, bacteria, fungal, auto immune diseases and so forth

permalink
report
parent
reply
-5 points

No, but its largest association is with it.

permalink
report
parent
reply
9 points

Stop saying that.

permalink
report
parent
reply
-4 points

If you don’t believe me, you could always show up locally and test it out. It is true.

permalink
report
parent
reply

Asklemmy

!asklemmy@lemmy.ml

Create post

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it’s welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Icon by @Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de

Community stats

  • 9.5K

    Monthly active users

  • 5.9K

    Posts

  • 321K

    Comments