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[Laurence Horn]

I remember being struck by the elegant logic underlying the adjective
"serodiscordant" some decades ago and it has occurred to me over the last
couple of weeks that it (or perhaps a slightly adjusted version) might be
repurposed for the current situation--whenever I see coverage of couples
who are now living apart because they differ in viral polarity. Curiously,
though "serodiscordant" is established enough to have its own (albeit
brief) wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serodiscordant), it
has no entry in the OED so I don't know when it dates from.  1990s, if I
had to guess.

LH

LH

On Wed, Apr 8, 2020 at 10:47 PM Chris Waigl <chris at lascribe.net> wrote:

> This is something that gives me very odd vibes, and must be even weirder
> for many older, and male, gay people. I came to the AIDS crisis somewhat
> late, having come out *just *when the first tritherapies became available
> and people started to have hope that an HIV+ status didn't necessarily have
> to mean "prepare to die". I lived in France then so my English intuition
> isn't the most authentic. But I remember people first talking about this or
> that person being positive, later seropositive ("séropo" short in French).
>
> Anyhoo, this week in various teleconferences for my work I heard several
> coworkers, all straight, talk in terms such as "my teenage son is
> frustrated that he can't see his best friend, but the friend's uncle is
> positive", "I haven't been to the hangar in 2 weeks because a student in
> the class that takes place there became positive". (Rephrased almost-quotes
> from memory.)
>
> Chris
> --
> Chris Waigl . chris.waigl at gmail.com . chris at lascribe.net
> http://eggcorns.lascribe.net . http://chryss.eu
>
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>

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