Apparently, Norovirus is all over Britain

Geographically speaking, it's not that huge a country.

What interests me is that sounds an awful lot like what I had a few weeks ago (the horror!), which is still spreading around everybody I know in real life :( I feel so bad, I think Evangeline must be the one who got them all sick, both of us! (All my sister would say is "They can't spread it back to us, right? I think I'd die".)

And when I posted about it in my journal and on TBW, I got a comments that it's "over here" as well, when "over here" is far away from where I am. The US *is* a big country.

That's right. It's taking over the world, one sick person at a time.

Now I have a question about this....

[Poll #1116191]

Remember - be honest. This is for posterity.

Wikipedia tells me that rotovirus and its kin are often referred to as "stomach flu"

This gives me flashbacks to 12th grade health class (first time around). I told you about that, I really disliked the teacher? This had a bit of a magnifying effect - the less I liked him, the more irritating I found him, and the more he irritated me, the less I liked him.

The guy used to harp on a few favorite subjects, and one of those was the phrase "stomach flu". As he put it, the flu is a respiratory illness, and there's no such thing as stomach flu.

But here's what I'm thinking. If I'm sick, and I say I have the stomach flu, and you know what I mean, and I know what I mean, and my doctor knows what I mean and is able to give me appropriate medical advice based on that, doesn't it follow that there is such a thing as "stomach flu", even if it only exists as an idea in our heads*?

I mean, sure, it's not the same as flu flu, but seriously. If I can take something that grows in the dirt and call it a "peanut" while being totally aware that it is neither a pea, nor a nut, and expect that the whole world** will understand me and not quibble over my language, I think we can all agree*** that the phrase "stomach flu" means a specific group of symptoms. And as long as we've achieved the ultimate goal of communication, does it really matter what we call it? I'd rather say "stomach flu" and have everybody understand me than say "rotovirus" and only have doctors understand me.

*<sub>By all this "idea in our heads" talk, I mean to say that unicorns kinda exist because we can talk about unicorns and we all share the same basic images of unicorns, even though you can't go out and capture a unicorn in the wild since they don't happen to exist there****.

**That is, the whole world that I care about talking to.

***When I say "can all agree" I do not mean, of course, that we do all agree. I know one health teacher who would probably vehemently disagree, of course, but he's not part of the whole world that I care about talking to ;)

****Unless of course they do and nobody has ever seen one, nor seen any evidence for them. Lack of proof is not proof of lack, etc. etc. etc. It is very unlikely that there is such a thing as unicorns, outside of our minds and language, but logically, I don't see how you can really *prove* they aren't there. Kinda like God, yes.</sub>

My mother says I just cribbed that unicorn example off of Bertram Russell

I can't see how, since I've never read any of the guy's work, so I prefer to believe that somehow, he stole it* from me. Using time travel.

*_{Will steal it? Will have stolen it? Is stealing it? Is having been had stolen it? I really need a copy of Ten Thousand Tenses for Time Travelers. I'm just not sure it's in print right now, whenever now happens to be.}