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That reminds me of the "Spanish flu", which should better be renamed "USA flu" -- until science later identifies another land of origin. But seriously: It is no
by Archelaos 2y ago
That reminds me of the "Spanish flu", which should better be renamed "USA flu" -- until science later identifies another land of origin. But seriously: It is not uncommon that a term starts its career as a description, but petrifies as a label later, when it is too late to change it besides better knowledge. My favourite example is "oxygen", which literally means "acidifier". Lavoisier coined the term, because he wrongly thought that oxygen was part of all acids.
- robotnikman 2y agoAnd this reminds me of Syphilis and it's various names From wikipedia: >The English, the Germans, and the Italians called it "the French disease", while the French referred to it as the "Neapolitan disease". The Dutch called it the "Spanish/Castilian disease".[113] To the Turks it was known as the "Christian disease", whilst in India, the Hindus and Muslims named the disease after each other.[