All my life, watching America

[venta]

Yesterday, I was reading a blog post by an American mum-of-five, and it was mentioned in passing that one of her daughters was really ill with strep.

Strep, you say?

I'm aware that American kids get strep throat. I'm even vaguely aware that that's short for streptococcus. What I'm not aware of is why us British kids don't get it. Is it one of those bizarre geographically-localised conditions? Is it something they make a fuss about that we don't?

So I took myself off to Wikipedia, and read up on Streptococcal pharyngitis. And it sounded dreadfully familiar. In fact, I had it when I was a kid. Repeatedly.

It's just that we call it by its more generic name of tonsilitis.

So there you go. Maybe you knew that anyway. I didn't, and I shall add a new word to my English/US dictionary (along with the recently-added fava beans, lima beans and garbanzo beans).

Edit for accuracy: it seems the most common cause of tonsilitis is viral, not bacterial. So strep throat is tonsilitis, but tonsilitis is not necessarily strep throat.

Comments

[zotz]

I believe so, yes, unless the continuing moanings of medical pedants have actually worked in the last few years.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah, ok. See also "I was off work yesterday with 'flu".

Since the blog post I originally referred to involved quite a lot of projectile vomiting and ultimately a lab test, I'm willing to believe her that it really was strep ;)

[zotz]

Absolutely - it's not actually that rare for it to be streptococcal. It's just not the leading cause.

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

See also "I was off work yesterday with 'flu".

Or referring to any chest infection as pneumonia.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't think I've encountered people doing that. In my world that's still something that's pretty serious, and probably means you've been in hospital at the very least.