Registered: 02/07/07
Posts: 3917
Loc: Ozark Mountains in SW Missouri
Originally Posted By aimless
I hope that someone who does marketing at that company knows that "hydrophobic" has long had as its primary meaning: rabid, i.e. infected with rabies.
That's hilarious
I think maybe that's more of a slang usage though, that describes a symptom of rabies. Maybe it's an American thing. Poor Aussies wouldn't know if that's the case, but it is pretty funny.
Registered: 02/05/03
Posts: 3293
Loc: Portland, OR
The use of 'hydrophobic' as a term to indicate rabies goes back to ancient times, before the first Europeans set foot in America or Australia, when it was thought that rabid animals and people couldn't stand the presence of water. This was, of course, a crock, but for centuries it was assumed to be scientific knowledge - probably because it was written down by Aristotle or Galen or some other 'authority'.
I always wondered who the original "They" were - as in, They say you should never sleep in your clothes, They say you should always carry 2 quarts of water, even when you can see the next stream from here, etc.
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