!anaj ,em s'taht

I’ve got acute viral nasopharyngitis

January 7, 2007 at 3:05 pm | In Learning English | Leave a Comment
Tags: Common cold

This is just another way of saying that I’ve got the common cold, or an infection of nose (nasum) and throat (pharynx). There are several hundreds of viruses that can cause the common cold, and there isn’t really a cure for it, as there hardly is a cure for any viral infection.

Viruses, in my view, are extremely intimidating creatures anyway. They aren’t acually alive (not like bacteria or unicellular organisms), they are, matter-of-factly, nothing but information that reproduces. In my nostrils and throat, in this case, causing my mucosal cells to break down and be expunged as snot (or so I imagine – where does snot come from, actually?)

German learners of English: A possible translation for Tröpfcheninfektion is “to inhale droplets of coughs and sneezes”. I’ve always thought that Tröpfchen is one of the cutest words of the German language, in particular the Pfchen part.

Anyhow, what am I doing to fight the common cold? Hot Vitamin C drinks and high doses of aspirine. Three days of bed rest didn’t help at all.