Phlebonics

[Wilson Gray]

My bad, I was reaching for _phlebitis_, whence the following reference
to "fleas."

-Wilson

On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 6:19 PM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Phlebonics
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Apr 21, 2010, at 3:02 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>
>> At 4/21/2010 10:59 AM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>>> On Apr 21, 2010, at 7:25 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>>
>>>> At 4/21/2010 12:32 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>>>> Isn't there also an auxiliary branch of medicine known as
>>>>> "phlebonics," where they draw your blood or something? This is
>>>>> not to
>>>>> be confused with that infamous bit of quacksalvery known as
>>>>> "fleabonics." Everybody knows that can't cancer be cured with any
>>>>> fleas, despite what those local-cable ads claim.
>>>>
>>>> Are you thinking of phlebotonics?  The science of studying the
>>>> processes of blood coursing through meat-eating plants?  :-)
>>>
>>> on a more serious note, he might have been thinking of phlebotomy
>>> (etymologically 'vein'-cutting'), the drawing of blood for clinical
>>> purposes -- by a phlebotomist.
>>
>> Gee. arnold, if I'd known you were so serious, I would have
>> explained myself.
>
> why so snarky, Joel? i thought i made it clear that i understood that
> you were joking.
>
> but i also understood Wilson to have been asking a serious question,
> which no one had tried to answer -- before he digressed into joking
> about "fleabonics".  (but then Wilson's digressions, on a rough
> association-of-ideas basis, are famous around here, so they shouldn't
> be used to discount what they take off from.)
>
> but now it seems that everyone understands Wilson's query about
> "phlebotonics" to have been a joke as well.  so i'm a fool and i
> should have just stayed out of the whole thing.
>
> arnold
>
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--
-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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