trysail
Catch Me Who Can
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2005
- Posts
- 25,593
lurgy n. (the word is apparently considered to be slang but HP and Og are better suited to advise us on this), 1. Approximate British equivalent of the American playground term cooties, meaning a fictitious, yet highly infectious disease. Unlike cooties, now used by adults to refer to an general undefined infectious malady. Normally used in the form "the dreaded lurgy".
2. an illness that is not serious but passes easily from person to person.
3. British slang for feeling like shit.
N.B. The word is pronounced with a hard "g" as in "Fergie."
Origin:
The term originates from an episode of the 1950s radio comedy "The Goon Show" in which an epidemic of "The Dreaded Lurgi" was said to be about to sweep across Britain. It turned out that the lurgi was in fact a ficitious disease created by brass instrument makers who had claimed that no brass band player had ever died of the lurgi (thereby increasing sales hugely).
"The Goon Show" was an anarchic and surreal radio comedy series that starred Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe. It was written by Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes.
It may not be seldom-used in England, Scotland and Wales but it is unknown here in Her Majesty's former colonies. I came across the word in Andrew W. Montford's "Bishop Hill" blog.
...The rumpus over the Met Office's downgrading of its climate predictions rumbles on (much like my lurgy!)...
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/1/9/rumbling-on.html
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lurgy