Dear Ask a Doctor,
I’m a doctor in the Intensive Care Unit of the Cedars Closet Sinai hospital. Last week, I was attending a patient with all of the symptoms of COVID-19, but, when I gave her the diagnosis, she started screaming that the disease was “a hoax perpetrated by the lamestream media to help the Dumboprats steal our freedom!” I told her that her freedom would be severely constricted by a pine box (it was towards the end of a 20 hour shift – I had given my last ferk hours earlier). The woman shrieked that she had had a minor cold when she was admitted and that I must have injected her with something lethal in order to deny President McDruhitmumpf a second term in office because everybody knows COVID isn’t real! When I assured her that the pandemic was real, she spit in my mask and swore that I was a “ferking poxified cudchugger with ferking besmirched pantaloons!”
The intubation put a quick end to that nonsense, let me tell you!
By the tone of the woman’s voice, I got the sense she was trying to insult me. But, I have no idea what a poxified cudchugger with besmirched pantaloons is. Could you help me out?
Angela Rhododendrummer, type b positive (like that’s possible in these trying times!)
Dear Curious Patient
We’re medical doctors not script doctors! Okay, some of us are a little too fond of our scripts, but that’s between us and our medical certification board. The point is, if we had to figure out every oath that a patient in COVID denial had sworn at a doctor, we would be spending all of our office hours reading dictionaries – then, who would be available to fill out patient charts or harass interns (purely in the interest of making them better doctors, of course)?
Take two hours of escapist television. If curiosity persists, consult a Language Corrector Dude.
Ask a Doctor is a consortium of medical professionals who would rather not be personally identified as this is just a side gig and they don’t take it especially seriously, so why should you? If you have a question of a medical nature, talk to your family physician about it! If that is not possible – and you’re willing to take what you get – send your query to questions@lespagesauxfolles.ca. Say, wasn’t Scott Atlascoughedupcats the guy who sold body building programs in the back of comic books in the 1950s? What he’s selling today may not make any more sense, but you have to admire his tenacity!
Yo, Tech Answer Guy,
I’m a doctor in the Intensive Care Unit of the Cedars Closet Sinai hospital. Last week, a patient who exhibited all of the symptoms of COVID-19 was lying on a bed in her room, denying my diagnosis of her condition while watching Foxindehenhaus and Fiends.
“The President said the number of cases of COVID would go down to zero back in April,” Brian KissMeadekilmeadenow was saying. “So, whatever illness you may be feeling now, it’s not that.”
“No COVID, no COVID!” the patient howled. “President say so! What I got? What I got for real‽” Then, he called me a “ferking poxified cudchugger with ferking besmirched pantaloons!”
I…have no idea what that means. Do you?
Sincerely,
Angela from Akron
Yo, Ange,
Uhh, yeah, I’m not comfortable with your question. The Tech Answer guy has a lot of skillz, but speakage and wording aren’t one of them. Have you considered asking the Language Corrector Dude?
The Tech Answer Guy
If you are a dude with a question about the latest technology, ask The Tech Answer Guy by sending it to questions@lespagesauxfolles.ca. Just remember: No, Ask a Doctor must have been thinking of Charles Atlascoughedupcats. Scott Atlascoughedupcats was actually a performer who rose to fame as a cast member of the sketch comedy show Weekends!
Dear Amritsar,
I’m a doctor in the Intensive Care Unit of the Cedars Closet Sinai hospital. Last week, we were operating on a person for complications from COVID-19. When the anaesthetist asked the patient to count down backwards from 10, before he went under, he said, “Why won’t you…tell me…what I…really have…you ferking…poxified…cud…cud…cud…” I think he was trying to call me a “ferking poxified cudchugger with ferking besmirched pantaloons!” I’ve been getting a lot of that lately.
I still have no idea what it means, Can you help me figure it out?
Angela Rhododendrummer
Hey, Babe,
There was a time when people would put on their best Sunday clothes to go to the emergency room of a hospital, thanked the dentist for his tender ministrations as he amputated their leg without anaesthetic, and apologized for getting their blood all over the waiting room carpet. How long ago those days seem!
I could write a book about how social norms have broken down in the past four years as millions of Vesampuccerians have been given permission to release their inner Mr. Hydengoseekseanz by watching the behaviour of the country’s Raging-Id-in-Chief, but that wouldn’t – that – umm, excuse me, but I think it’s time I gave my agent a call.
In the meantime, you’re asking the wrong person the question (how gauche!). You should be talking to the Language Corrector Dude.
Dear Amritsar,
Yeah, a lot of people have been telling me about this Language Corrector Dude guy. He sounds like he could really help with my question. How do I get in touch with him?
Angela Rhododendrummer
Hey, Babe,
You don’t find the Language Corrector Dude so much as he crawls out from under his rock and finds –
Did someone take my name in vain?
And, there he is.
Hi, Angela. Excellent question. The naive interpretation of the word “cudchugger” would be “somebody who drinks liquefied grass quickly.” That would definitely be an insult, since everybody knows that the only way to avoid indigestion would be to drink liquefied grass slowly. Very slowly. Preferably with a bourbon chaser.
In fact, “cud” derives from the word “duccud,” an ancient Norse term for somebody who kisses horses on moonless nights. To “chugger” is a Middle English (half of the words from that period involve certain finger gestures!) form of the verb “to await with a mixture of trepidation and a runny nose.” So, you’re a moonlight horse lover in need of a kiss and a Kleenex.
The rest of the words in the epithet are pretty straightforward.
That may not sound like much of an insult to modern ears, but it was the height of personal invective in 1272!
It’s unfortunate that medical professionals should be assailed with such language by people whose lives they are trying to save. But, we live in extremperously divocative times we live in, don’t we?
Send your relationship problems to the Alternate Reality News Service’s sex, love and technology columnist at questions@lespagesauxfolles.ca. Amritsar Al-Falloudjianapour is not a trained therapist, but she does know a lot of stuff. AMRITSAR SAYS: I believe my esteemed colleague The Tech Answer Guy was referring to Charles Gogorocketschmo. Scott Atlascoughedupcats is actually a subspecies of Gobi Desert snow leopard.