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Amusingly, if you look at the talk section [1] of the Wikipedia article on the Spanish flu, some folks really (suddenly, recently, completely by coincidence) want to call it the 1918 flu.

There's no con job like a retcon job.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Spanish_flu



Seems fair enough:

> To maintain morale, World War I censors minimized early reports of illness and mortality in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. Papers were free to report the epidemic's effects in neutral Spain, such as the grave illness of King Alfonso XIII, and these stories created a false impression of Spain as especially hard hit. This gave rise to the pandemic's nickname, "Spanish flu". Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify with certainty the pandemic's geographic origin, with varying views as to the origin.

It's not like we call syphilis "French pox" any more.


I demand we stop naming hurricanes after people. I don't know how to handle a reality where my first name is associated with a bad thing.


We actually do exactly that: we retire hurricane names for being associated with a bad one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_retired_Atlantic_hurri...


Not what the poster asked for. We actually don't do that.


Lyme disease, Ebola, et al would like to have a word.


Ebola is actually named that to avoid naming it after a specific village, to reduce the stigma. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22704633

Lyme disease was around in humans long before its identification in Old Lyme, CT, so it too is an inaccurate name.

(We've also learned a few things since the 1970s, let alone 1918. Now, we have a standard: https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-has-a-name-the-deadl...)


Marburg.


"Marburg virus was first described in 1967."


And shall we rename it?


Marburg's name is at least accurate.

There are two separate issues here: Place-based names cause a stigma (an issue for new diseases, less so for historical ones) and that "Spanish flu" is actually completely wrong on the origins of that specific disease.


So why the timing to rename it? Why now?

I am asking that because you did not address it in my original comment, so I am going to harp on it again. Why now?


Why not?

It was a global pandemic that didn't even start in Spain. We happen to be paying a lot of attention to it because it's the last really global pandemic of similar severity/spread to the COVID-19 outbreak. The increased attention to this little bit of history has us asking whether we should correct the inaccuracy in its name.

Even the CDC calls it the "1918 flu pandemic". https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-commemoratio...

Not as a reaction to COVID-19, either: "Page last reviewed: March 21, 2018"


That isn't what I was asking. I asked, why now. What about this instance in time has prompted this? Also, I was talking about Wikipedia. Please do not move the goalposts on me.

I guess the Socratic method isn't going to work here.

Bluntly put, some folks are full Ministry-of-Truthing away at Wikipedia to help justify their attempts at erasure of the "Wuhan flu," China connection. That's why it is happening now. "See, we don't call it the 'Spanish flu,' so why should we call it ..."

It's terribly skeezy.


You’re reading a lot of malice into “let’s call it what the CDC called it two years before all this”.

The timeline doesn’t work.


"Spanish" Flu is not derogatory when used in the context of explaining the Spanish press were progressive and free to report on their surroundings without gov oppression.

Unlike the rest of world, who were covering up their military losses due to illness.


Yeah. The only illness called by a place where it didn't start or was discovered. Totally fair.




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