to feel irrational hatred everytime someone refers to a bacterium as a virus?

[WidowWadman]

Might be just the hormones, but it makes me want to scream.

HIV AIDS.

AIDS : Aquired immunodeficiency syndrome is the name of the "illness" caused by Human Immunodeficiency virus. Why do we need both when its described.

We dont annonce that we have " Human influenza virus The Flu" , or "Rhinovirus The cold" " Epstein Barr virus, Glandular fever" when we have these infections. Its "the flu" "the cold" , "glandular fever"

Obviously you can be HIV infected without having full blown AIDS, but I still think saying both to describe it is a bit redundant.

now that really is an unreasonable thing to get annoyed about, but i do.

You should all make sure that you never watch a film which I think is called Virus. I watched it even before I did my biology degree and got very annoyed by the ridiculous reasons why they couldn't get a sample of a deadly flu virus that was being carried from South America to the US by a woman who was managing to kill everyone she met in about a day. They then decided that it must be the exact same virus as the 1918 virus and so went to Siberia to dig up some 80 year old bodies from the permafrost. They were then able to check that they had managed to get a sample by seeing it move around under the microscope (I think it might have been an electron microscope which makes it even wronger in some respects). Once they had a sample of the virus they were then able to make a vaccine for it in about a day which they were able to use to cure the woman who was taking it to the US from Mexico. I'm pretty sure that there wasn't anything that came close to being scientifically accurate in the whole film

Definitely think it's best if I avoid that QueenStromba. It sounds distressingly like Outbreak, during which I got told off by my family for squawking. There was definitely a virus under microscopy scene and enough antibody in a tiny monkey for everyone scene. And a single well ELISA - nice.

"the absolute best of all is when someone starts moaning about how shameful it is that 50% of British school children have a below average reading age/above average waistline etc."

Or on MN, that 50% of workers earn less than the average salary...

Love this thread, as a true pedant who has to bite her lip through approx 60% of my consultations every day. Does NO-ONE understand what 'chronic' means? or 'acute' or 'constipation' or 'viral'...

And don't get me started on people using meaningless measures of just how ill they were; "I was on a drip and everything"!

Did anyone hear gorgeous Brian Cox on radio 4 yesterday when he had been consulted in order to get things 'right' in a movie based in space, yet some of his advice was ignored as it did not 'translate ' to what people expect in a film e.g , when a shot is taken out of the window of a space craft. viewers would expect to see planets. but in reality this is not the case.

Intense hatred of certain adverts on TV -

"Kills 99% of Bacteria - Including Flu!"

grrrrrrr

Is this where all the science geeks have been hiding? I've been looking for you for ages .

Can I add my irrational hatred of the lack of understanding of the difference between correlation and causation? (I'm looking at you, Daily Fail)

I hate CSI for kind of the same reason. If only they showed in real time how long it actually takes to run an electrophoresis gel, and I would love to see them make all the samples and load them by hand :(.

you are manifestly not being unreasonable.

I'd like to nominate "chemical-free" for inclusion into this thread. I have refused to buy a steam-mop, because every time I see one, it's accompanied by "chemical-free". This isn't just mere pedantry here- I am convinced that any company that untruthfully labels their product will provide awful customer service, in the event of a fault or other problem.

themildmanneredjanitor :"this is like when health visitors say 'we like most babies to be about the 50th centile' "

Yes- I nearly exploded during the boys' babyhood.

interpretation of those centile charts has always annoyed me too, some poor mothers would be so panicked by HVs suggesting their babies were too small or too big, ... if they are within the extremes of the chart they are NORMAL!

and the Daily Mail science stories really are the best :)

This thread is making me feel much better.

I thought I was being a complete bitch pedant last week when a mum cornered me at playgroup and began banging on about how she didn't want her daughter to be exposed to all these "chemicals" in her food and how she wouldn't eat GM food because she didn't want "any mutated cells" in her body! She was extremely proud of the fact that she'd done so much googling internet research that she was "much better informed" than most doctors.

I was literally biting my cheeks to keep from telling her what an idiot she was and could feel my intracranial pressure rising with each sentence. In the end I had to pinch DS to make him yell make an excuse and walk away.

yes it annoys me too...........................

Ahh how soothing to know I am not the only one to care about such things. Another big bugbear is food and cosmetics described as "all natural ingredients" so therefore automatically much better. I have to will myself to to not to counter that deadly nightshade, botulinum toxin and ricin are also all natural but don't recommend eating them or using them in makeup. Maybe in addition to a pedants corner we need a bereakaway "geeks group."

Why isn't there a geeks sanctuary on MN?

I've just thought of another. The "five a day" thing. Wonderful spin and sciency stuff - but what does it actually mean? Unless I've totally missed it, there's never been an explanation. Five peas, five cabbages, or what?

Many moons ago, my DH purchased a pack of lovely, scrummy, dried-yet-moist apricots. I happily consumed such delights, only to read the small print which indicated that three would constitute one of my five-a-day, but six could give me the squits.

Following on from Kandinsky's point - I wonder how many people know what Botox actually means.

My granny used to make me laugh with the five a day. She ran out of sensible fruit after having an apple, a pear and a banana and was adamant that she couldn't repeat fruits - it had to be five different ones.

The "eight glasses of water" stuff has been proven to be nonsense, but people still go on about it.

Quite hugglymugly. I have wanted to shout- tox as in toxin, clue's in the name people. But strangely it has never quite annoyed me as much as the term Boswelox. Or as much as my surprise when I looked at a free sample of body cream that contained lysate of bifidus. Really?!

And inspired by several current threads, that old chestnut: 'Humans evolved from chimpanzees'.

Erm no, it takes only a very basic understanding of evolution to know that humans and modern apes evolved from a common ancestor, which is not the same thing at all.