Back when it was just a foreign concept whose name was limited to public health journals and the occasional horror movie, my sister and I used to joke about Ebola. Every time we got the flu and felt like garbage we would text each other "Ugh, I have Ebola." It was shorthand for "I feel very under the weather at the moment." But now that it's finally happened, this snaking into the global population that public health experts have warned of for many years, we stopped joking about having Ebola ... Read more »
ebola
Ebola, the real bogeyman, and you
Ever since I was 15, my sister and I have used "Ebola" as a short form derivative of every bad bug we've ever gotten. "Oh god, I've been laid up all day with Ebola," "that taco from last night gave me Ebola," etc, etc. We were able to say it with such offhand tone because we knew that really, Ebola wasn't exactly a threat here in Southern California. It was simply shorthand for "really sick." After reading "The Hot Zone" I stopped saying the word at all. Faced with the visceral reality of ... Read more »