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Mouthpox is totally a real disease

Moosterkey: Um…
Moosterkey: You have mouthpox?
cherriebb515: I need a real disease.
Moosterkey: Mouthpox is totally a real disease.

It is.  It’s one of the poxviruseseseses.  In fact, it’s one of the four genera that can infect humans.  It’s probably from the orthopoxes, which means its breathren pox would include smallpox, cowpox, and monkeypox, but not chickenpox because chickenpox is caused by a different family of viruseseses.

Symptoms are generally mild.  They include small blisters at the bottom of the mouth and onto the lower lip.  Symptoms resolve within a few days unless blisters are popped.  In the case where the blisters are popped, the virus, which is localized within the blisters, are free to spread into other parts of the body, which precipitates an intense craving for ramen.  Upon this second stage of infection, fever and rash are common.  Sunlight causes exposed areas to turn permanently green.

There is no treatment for the disease itself, only the symptoms.  Blisters should be covered to prevent bursting.  A liquid diet is preferred while blisters are intact.  Food intake via the mouth should be restricted after the blisters burst to prevent further spread of the virus.  Makeup can be used to cover the areas that turned green.  Laser treatments are ineffective.

cherriebb515: You’re lying.
cherriebb515: I just googled it.

Why grammar matters: 50 United States edition

Recently, I’ve been noticing a lot of grammatical errors in publications.  Places where you would think there wouldn’t be grammatical errors.  Or at least, big ones.

The most recent one invovles some KitchenAid documentation.  I think a warranty notice or something.

If you reside in the 50 United States…

If you reside in the 50 United States?  Wait.  There’s more than one country called the United States?  And apparently you have to be a resident of all 50 of them?  So, it’s like a case of dual citizenship, but times 25?  Well, it doesn’t say you have to be a citizen of the country.  Just a resident.  I guess that’s not too bad.

But what would you call being a citizen of 50 different countries anyway?  Being a citizen of two different countries is called “dual citizenship.”  Well, the citizenship part can stay the same, but how about something called 50?  Well, the prefix meaning “five” is “penta-” and “ten” is “deca-.”  I don’t think there’s anything specifically for 50.  So I guess it’s pentadecasomething citizenship.  What would be the proper ending though? I guess I could just use the standard “-ple.”  So, it would be pentadecaple citizenship.

That’s…pretty hard.  Especially since at least one of the United States has that rule about giving up citizenship to other countries when you become a citizen of the United States.  Well, I guess you don’t really have to give up the citizenship of the other countries.  The US just won’t recognize it.  I wonder how that works with extradition treaties.

Btw, isn’t it really confusing to have several countries with all the same name?  I mean, how do you address things?  What about country codes?  The US I live in has the country code of 1.  What about the others?  And how would you designate that on paper?  The country code of United States XII?  You want to send this package to the United States L?  This is so confusing.