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Flu predates modern medicine; so does it's naming.

History.com[^] wrote:
The word influenza, however, wasn’t used to describe a disease until many centuries later. In 1357, people called an epidemic in Florence, Italy influenza di freddo, which translates to “cold influence,” referring to the disease’s possible cause.

In 1414, French chroniclers used similar terms to describe an epidemic that affected up to 100,000 people in Paris. They said it originated from vent puant et tout plein de froidure, or a “smelly and cold wind.”

Another fun part on that page;

History.com wrote:
Scientists later discovered that H. influenzae causes many types of infections—including pneumonia and meningitis—but not influenza.

I never learned to distinguish between common cold and the flu. I get flu-shots against the common cold for all I know.

Bastard Programmer from Hell Suspicious | :suss:

If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.

The common cold is a rhinovirus infection, flu an influenza virus.

"'Do what thou wilt...' is to bid Stars to shine, Vines to bear grapes, Water to seek its level; man is the only being in Nature that has striven to set himself at odds with himself."
—Aleister Crowley

It's because of the medical definition of what an influenza is.

That's because it's a medical definition, so it's stupid, and doesn't meet the stringent developer-level definition of medical things.

e.g. "parts of the human body that have a hinge" are, obviously, the same thing, according to developers, but doctors don't see knees, elbows, and jaws as being the same thing.

Doctors are idiots, eh?

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

Seems like you didn't understand the question. Let me make an analogy:

Lots of media, both printed and electronic, influences my political opinions. Then the political analysts start talking about the influenzing (with 'z') media. I learn that 'influenzing' media are TV, FB and Flickr. Newspapers, radio and email campains and others, are influencing media.

I ask around: What is the real difference between influencing and influenzing my political ideas?
The answer I get is essentially: Influencing is what you get from influencing media, influenzing you get from influenzing media.
Well, of course, but what set influenzing media apart from influencing media?
Influenzing media are those influenzing you, influencing media influences you, you silly fool!

Yes. Circle arguments work because circle arguments work. Therefore I am a silly fool to ask. It is a matter of definition. It is defined that way because it is defined that way.

Maybe, if you manage to get to the core it, you will learn that there is some academically defined detail setting TV, FB and Flickr apart from the others, such as the image/text ratio combined with the degree of interaction. Or something else. Of course these aspects are related to how the media affect my opinions, but why are those selected as criteria for creating this special group of 'influenzing' media? You could have groped by so many other criteria!

Same with the flu. A flu is caused by an influenza virus, and they are defined as influenza viruses because they cause a flu. That is the trivial, circular part. If the corona virus had been covered by the definition of an influenza virus, it would have caused a flu as well. The list of corona symptoms are very similar to the list of flu symptoms, so common man would find it quite natural.

Asking why the definition of influenza viruses cover those four (groups of) viruses, but not corona and others, is NOT to suggest that "doctors are idiots"!

You've totally lost me. Seems this entire thread is based on a typo; that someone somewhere typed z when they meant c. Influenzing doesn't seem to appear in any dictionary (which is what you'd expect, since it's not a word). Even typing it here, Chrome tells me I'm in error. So this whole post doesn't seem to mean anything... ?

Just because things have similar effects doesn't mean they're the same. A wolf will maul you to death as will a lion or a tiger. But a wolf is a canine, both lions and tigers are feline. You don't want to be locked in a room with either of them, but they're not the same. However to a lay person, trying to define the difference between felines and canines is non-trivial.

DerekT-P wrote:
Influenzing doesn't seem to appear in any dictionary (which is what you'd expect, since it's not a word)

True, and I've never seen it before, but I just searched on it, and found that it's used in a few medical texts in place of "influencing".

Weird. It must be used by doctors with one-track minds.

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

It was my deliberate attempt to illustrate how you could create what appears to common man to be an artificial, arbitrary grouping (such as influenza viru vs. non-influenza viri). Four virus-groups are defined as influenza, but to common man, selecting those four, not five or six, seems arbitrary.

So I created a similar artificial grouping of three classes of media, labeled the same way (with a 'z'), with no easily discernable charateristic to explain why those three media are referred to as 'influenzing'. I was hoping that you would see the analogy: To me, and lots of others, four viri that influences my health are grouped as influenza, but not the others. Why? Three media that influences my political views are grouped as influenzing media, but not the others. Why?

Is the group of influenza viri just as arbitrary and artificial as my artificial influenzing media group? Or is there something more fundamental, of significance to me, behind the influenza virus groups?

If you didn't see the analogy, if it didn't help you understand what my original question was about - too bad.

Others have indicated that the classification of virus groups as influenza and non-influenza is indeed arbitrary. Maybe not quite as arbitrary as my arbitrary classification of media, but those who defined the term could have made the definition narrower or broader than they did, without breaking rules of logic. So I guess my question has been properly answered ... unless someone make fierce objections to what has been said until now Smile | :)

Ah, ok.

However "flu" is not arbitrary and random. Influenza viruses belong to different genera in the family Orthomyxoviridae. If a virus belongs to a genus in a different family, it's not an influenza virus. If you study taxonomy you'll see that the differences between genera (and indeed between species within a genus) can often be more "apparent" than those between families. However there will be key identifying attributes that will have led to each species being classified in one genus or another. Occasionally (or often, in some orders!) further research leads to things being reclassified, or merged together, or split apart; taxonomy is very definitely not a static thing. Further, as science develops new ways of classifying things, (DNA sequencing for instance) the changes can sometimes be quite radical. Not, however, arbitrary. When "experts" describe the grouping of viruses into "influenza" or "not influenza", it's very likely that either those experts are medical doctors rather than taxonomists (and hence neither know nor need to know the criteria) or are taxonomists who know the differences but cannot explain them in layman's terms. There are, I'm sure, aspects of software development which to you are quite distinct, but that you would struggle to explain to a layman in a sentence or two.

Three of the genera within Orthomyxoviridae have names that start influenza but others don't. It's probably historical, and related to the reclassification processes mentioned above, that some are actually called influenza and others are not. Coronaviruses belong to a different family, Coronaviridae

Then again, the term "flu" has come to mean, in common parlance, a wide range of viruses that may not be influenza at all, and perhaps much of the "it isn't flu" response comes from conflating the common parlance term with the scientific definition.

Regardless of what it is or isn't, or what it's called, it's probably best avoided.

Member 7989122 wrote:
Could anyone explain this to a person with next to nothing background in medical theory?

Maybe by asking different bunch of people ? we are not medical "persons" we're computer "persons"

I'd rather be phishing!

Maximilien wrote:

Maybe by asking different bunch of people ? we are not medical "persons" we're computer "persons"

Yeah, but if some "common housewife" looked up, say, a Linux Core Developers Forum with a question about what this "operating system" thing is, do you think that she would get an answer that makes any sense to her? Of course those Linux core developers would insist that the answer makes perfect sense, but I am not sure that the housewife would agree.

Similarly, if I went to some forum of virologists, they would probably give me an answer that would be totally greek (or maybe Latin) to me. Often, if you really are new to a field, you can get more help by first getting hold of some digested, simplified information than by going to the top experts.

Semantics?

But either way I hear that the Corona virus goes well with Lyme disease.

I, for one, like Roman Numerals.

Because we are like sheep not able or willing to absorb more.

That statement makes no sense at all, even in your language. More than what?

Bastard Programmer from Hell Suspicious | :suss:

If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.

More than we're already accustomed to. So the news media "simplifies" it as well as sugar coats it. Just a flu strain.

same reason lions are called lions, and tigers, well tigers.

both will eat you, but you'd hope that the guy trying to get the attacking beast off you isn't the fella from the circus which his whip and chair if it's a tiger. (A picture of Sigfried & Roy would be the better choice.)

Flu shots don't fix corona, you'd want the doc to inject the correct magic juice in or not?

I used to work in a genetic company and some intelligent person asked this very question of one of the doctors working there.
The answer was and you may not be satisfied with it - "convention".

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”

― Christopher Hitchens

GuyThiebaut wrote:
The answer was and you may not be satisfied with it - "convention".

Once it is declared that it is a mere convention, I am perfectly happy with it.

Telling someone that their Eternal Truth is a mere "convention" can be very upsetting to them, even with insignificant details.

Like when I (many years ago) helped this lady, who had been using Word Perfect for years, to learn to use MS Word: When I explained the the button with the printer icon, she objected fiercely to that way of working: "You must agree that using the F7 key for printing is much more natural!"

Or dress codes: In several countries, you are required by law to expose certain parts of your body when in public, but to cover other parts. Saying "Sheesh, it is just a convention" and throwing away your swimsuit on the beach will be met with far stronger reactions than just "He is not behaving according to established conventions".

OK, even the fiercest "correctionists" are not threatening to call the police, even if you wrongfully describe Corona symptoms as a flu. But it goes far beyond "a mere convention" reactions. Such as when I ask what distinguishes flu viruses from non-flu, and one answer concludes "Doctors are idiots, eh?" To me, that is a quite emotional reaction to the questioning of a convention. To me it says, Don't you ever dare to touch that convention!, at the same level as Don't you ever dare to drop your swimsuit at our beach! if I ask for the real justification for the swimsuit requirement.

...it sounds like you were not satisfied with the answer Sniff | :^)

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”

― Christopher Hitchens

I am not an expert, but I guess the difference is like getting hit by a tree while passing by, or getting hit by someone with a tree:

The first can happen because there's bad wheather, the other can happen, because you asked a silly question. But in both cases, the symptoms are the same Poke tongue | ;-P

GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)

Some restaurant chains have replaced their plastic straws with a version that looks/feels/tastes like cardboard because, I'm told, sea turtles end up with those straws in their stomach. Or some such. The inside of these cardboard straws seem to be lined with something that isn't cardboard because, I'm assuming, cardboard itself would otherwise absorb the liquid and start decomposing immediately.

Only, the cardboard straws do start to decompose before I can even finish my drink, and I end up with pieces of cardboard and whatever that coating is, in my stomach.

Somehow I'm not thinking this helps me. But then, I'm sure that sort of thinking is wrong, because the goal isn't to help me.

Stop buying the drinks, or stop using the straws...

"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
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You don't drink when you eat at a restaurant?

From a glass or a demi-tasse I do!

From a cardboard / styrofoam cup full of chemicals? No ...

"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
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I'll keep an eye out for the guy who brings his own glass at a restaurant.

Most restaurants provide them, normally without my making any special request ... Big Grin | :-D

"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
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“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”