Heard on "Today on NBC"

[Jonathan Lighter]

This week's _New Yorker_ has an article about bioengineers who are not only describable as "viral spokesmen," they're now resurrecting _extinct_ killer viruses for which there are no known cures.

  Some of their own colleagues think they're nuts, so who am I to judge?

  JL
Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Charles Doyle
Subject: Re: Heard on "Today on NBC"
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I remember when Magic first went public regarding his infection: He vowed to become a "spokesman for the virus." That phrasing, too, conjured amusing images . . . .

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 09:57:42 -0500
>From: Wilson Gray
>
>Matt is questioning Magic Johnson on the amount of medicine that the latter takes daily to control his HIV. Magic answers that he now takes only two medicines a day "because the virus is _layin' dead_ in [his] body."
>
>Clearly, Magic means that the virus is _lying dormant_ in his body. However, this caught my attention because, in the 'Forties and 'Fifties in Saint Louis, we used "lay dead" to mean, "laze around the house doing nothing in particular."
>
>It may be a bit macabre, but I gotta tell y'all, the mental picture of HIV just lazin' around in Magic's bod doin' nothin' in p'ticluh cracks me up.
>
>-Wilson

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