More awful HuffPo writing

[Arnold Zwicky]

On May 21, 2012, at 5:45 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:

> I must have my prescriptivist hat on tonight. Although the actual title
> of the page is different, the title that shows up in "Most Popular"
> links is "Georgia Man Develops Flesh-Eating Bacteria; Is Third Case In
> Recent Weeks ".
>
> http://goo.gl/dV7Bd
>
> "Develops" is a funny word here. Usually, when I see "develops" in
> similar circumstances, a disease or a set of symptoms follow. One could
> develop "a case of Flesh-Eating Bacteria". I suppose, a wound might
> develop an infection or even bacteria, but not a person. So we have two
> options--either it was a screw-up or "flesh-eating bacteria", as a
> lexical unit, is being treated as the name of a disease. I'm actually
> inclined toward the latter, even though it still sounds strange.

this is in fact the way most people refer to the disease.  to the extent that when i talk about it -- which i do fairly often, having nearly died from it in 2003 -- i've taken to using the common name "flesh-eating bacteria", since almost no one understands "necrotizing fasciitis".  (when i use the medical term, i just have to explain that it means "flesh-eating bacteria" or "flesh-eating disease".)

>
>> A third person reportedly has flesh-eating bacteria, also known as
>> necrotizing fasciitis, according to news reports.
>
> OK, I suppose, I'm nitpicking here, but "also known as" usually gives
> something other than the standard medical terminology. That is, I would
> have no objection to talking about necrotizing fasciitis "also known as
> the flesh-eating bacteria". But, as I said, I'm nitpicking here.

yes, you are.  this is not the way ordinary people talk about disease.  ordinary people refer to (for example) "shingles", "a cold sore", and "chickenpox", and then might (or might not) go on to explain that these diseases are also known as "herpes zoster", "herpes labialis", and "varicella zoster", respectively.  for ordinary people, the medical terms are alternatives to what are for them the *real names* of the diseases.
>
>> However, NBC's 11Alive reported that doctors say there is no link
>> between the three cases.
>>
>
> Well, thank Thor for that! Wouldn't want the three cases over a period
> of a week in two neighboring states to be linked, would we? And the
> lapse from first to last is more like two weeks. So, if the ratio holds,
> we should see about 75 to 150 cases per year, right? Uhm... no.
>
>> There are about 10,000 to 15,000 necrotizing fasciitis infections each
>> year in the U.S., with 2,000 to 3,000 deaths, according to the
>> Wisconsin Department of Health Services.
>>

that seems like a high figure; some sources estimate 600/yr. in the U.S.  but the figure is quite low for MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphlococcus aureus), which is transmissible by contact and can develop into NF.

arnold

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