A letter to ABC Online News in which the writer quotes himself

[Wilson Gray]

"I [feel] like blowing my brains out, I am so sick with the headaches _& them_."

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/PainManagement/comments?type=story&id=126909

The writer is describing a consequence of the pain of a cluster headache.


Personally, I don't get the _& them_. I have cluster headaches and I
know that you can't have just one: they're called "cluster headaches"
because they come in clusters. Maybe the writer meant to say... Well,
I don't know what he meant to say. Usually, _and them_ means "X and
those other people usually associated with X." But that doesn't make
any sense, here. I've tried, but I can't get "the headaches and those
other things usually usually associated with them." The only thing
associated with a cluster headache is pain! Pain!! PAIN!!! that has to
be felt to be believed.

-Wilson
--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org