As winter is coming I thought this would be the perfect time to talk about a typical winter problem, getting ill. Every year people start to get colds or the flu in winter and often people need to visit the doctor’s, however the way we talk about being ill varies greatly from one country to the next.

 

For those of you who don’t know, I live in northern Spain. When I first arrived here I seriously thought that people had serious health problems because people here are used to using the medical terms to talk about illness, yet in English we tend to use more informal, non-professional terms. Today we are going to look at some of these terms.

 

Be/feel (a bit) under the weather

This is a really typical expression that I use a lot when I have a cold. It’s an expression that literally means ‘a little bit ill’ and this is why it is typically used for a winter cold.

Example: ‘Sally isn’t coming to the office today as she is a bit under the weather’.

It’s an expression you will hear a lot if you are living in an English speaking country.

 

Infection

So one problem I had in Spain when talking about being ill is that people use words like bronchitis, otitis and cystitis, which for me were very technical words used by doctors. Now there are some health problems like appendicitis where we use the medical term. Yet with the first three we actually just say where it affects you and add ‘infection’.

Otitis: Ear infection

Bronchitis: Chest infection

Cystitis: Urine infection

Example: ‘I am on a course of antibiotics as I have a really bad ear infection’

 

Cold symptoms

When you have a cold there are key symptoms we talk about:

A Runny Nose: is when you have a cold and have lots of mucus flowing from your nose.

A Blocked Nose: is when you have lots of mucus in your nose, but it is congested and you can’t breathe.

A Sore Throat: is when you have pain in your throat. Note that we always use ‘sore’ with ‘throat’, never pain.

Swollen Glands: is when the glands in your neck are inflamed as a result of you being ill and your body is fighting the virus or disease.

Example:

Doctor) How can I help you today?

Patient) I am feeling a bit under the weather.

Doctor) What’s wrong exactly?

Patient) I have a sore throat, a runny nose and swollen glands.

It’s important to note that all the expressions above are used with the verb ‘have’ or ‘have got’. You have a runny nose.

 

Verbs

There are a number of verbs that we use to describe symptoms. For example cough, sneeze.

Example: ‘I have been coughing and sneezing all morning’.