3 ms·
where were all the offended people when we had the 'spanish flu' or the 'german measles'.
by ejb999 5y ago
where were all the offended people when we had the 'spanish flu' or the 'german measles'.
- barbazoo 5y agoWhile I'm sure they probably were people that got offended by it I like to think that we've grown to be more sensitive to these kinds of issues in the past 100 years to not tolerate present day xenophobia based on past xenophobia. TIL that there were "German measels", in Germany we just called them "measels".
- morelisp 5y ago"German measles" is Röteln, more properly in English rubella (vs. measles / Masern, also often confused with rubella due to some languages using "rubeola" for measles). The name also has nothing to do with Germany; it's a mistranslation of "germanus", cognate to "germane", i.e. a disease "like measles". In other words, it's not German and it's not measles. Hopefully a lesson in using this naming pattern for diseases...
- woodruffw 5y agoWhat is the point of this comment? We can and should do better than our progenitors. Also, it's worth actually reading up on why we called it the Spanish Flu: our allies in WWI originally called it the "American Flu," but changed it to avoid offending us. Edit: it's also worth nothing that (1) "Kung Flu" is significantly different in content from "Spanish Flu," and (2) it doesn't have to be the case for anyone to be offended for xenophobia to be wrong.