What's a word you've spent a long time not using right?
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.
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Encephalitis is caused by viral infections. Our immune system usually suppresses said viruses, and HIV takes away the ability to suppress them.
This happens with a lot of illnesses... thrush, Tuberculosis, fungal infections. HIV allows a lot of stuff to have far worse impact than it normally would.
That's not quite the same as HIV causing them... Pedantic maybe, but since we're talking about words meaning things... ;)
Encephalitis literally just means "in the brain inflammation".
https://www.etymonline.com/word/encephalitis
This brain inflammation can be caused by many things. Quote from Mayo Clinic:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/encephalitis/symptoms-causes/syc-20356136
It can also be caused by prions. Mad cow disease is aka bovine spongiform encephalitis. I believe the word just indicates cell death in the brain which leaves regions of dead tissue.
True, but in the context of talking about someone's child in my local culture, it raises an eyebrow or two if the other person doesn't associate the two conditions.
I don’t get it. It raises an eyebrow if you don’t link encephalitis and HIV? I’m about 90% sure I must be misunderstanding you...
Or they’re just doubling down on using it incorrectly.
No it's true.
Encephalitis has many causes, yes, but HIV is the one that sticks out. If you go to someone and talk about it, they're going to have the same "assume the worse" or "out of context" mindset as if you were to talk about mononucleosis (to give a distant analogy). Sure, mononucleosis can be caused by several things, such as sharing a toothbrush or having someone cry on you, but everyone associates it with what it's famous for, being spread through liberal usage of intimacy. Same with encephalitis. So when you go to a random neighbor here and say "how is the kid with encephalitis" they're not going to take it well. People here are prudish like that.
You have a very exceptional bubble. Or a false impression.