Humorous disease names

[Mark Mandel]

I learned "zorch" in a different sense in the early sixties: the
conventional zigzag symbolization of a lightning bolt, with the zigs
longer than the zags (or vice versa, if you prefer), often used as an
icon for danger of electric shock. I never heard it used widely,
though. The person I learned it from may have been an MIT student.

m a m

On Wed, Jun 4, 2008 at 3:09 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard <gcohen at mst.edu> wrote:
> I had a friend in high school (1954-1958)  and college (1958ff.) who when asked what was wrong with, say, someone we knew who was sick, would humorously respond: "Complications of the zorch." He was the only person I ever heard use the term "zorch", and it was only in this context.  We both understood it as a nonexistent internal organ.
>
> Gerald Cohen

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