Does "she doesn't feel well" sound better than "she's sick"?
Hotdog
sick" out of the concern for the person's feeling.
Can't think of a demo.
And do you prefer the word "sick" to "ill" in the above sentence?
BTW, Happy Halloween to you all!
Bill Schnakenberg
>
> Would you purposely using "she doesn't feel well" instead of "she's
> sick" out of the concern for the person's feeling.
>
> Can't think of a demo.
>
> And do you prefer the word "sick" to "ill" in the above sentence?
'not well' and 'ill' sound a little more formal than 'sick'.
It all depends on who you are talking to at the moment.
>
> BTW, Happy Halloween to you all!
--
Bill -
PSP Terrorist - D'Lanok de Caresk chapter - Anti-Troll Unit 235
--------------------------------------------------------------
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Quincy, MASS. http://www.frontiernet.net/~willshak/salem/salem.html
--------------------------------------------------------------
Remove OutSpammedDot from my e-mail address when replying directly.
Any e-mail sent from @Hotmail.com is deleted without being read.
Polar
wrote:
>Would you purposely using "she doesn't feel well" instead of "she's
>sick" out of the concern for the person's feeling.
That's almost unanswerable. It's a function of so many variables --
who is the person to you? Is she/he a relative? friend? colleague?
supervisor? Is the person sensitive to language nuances? Etc.
In general, "...doesn't feel well..." is more formal, elegant and
tactful than "..sick..." especially when relationship to the subject
is unclear or delicate, ditto the situation.
[...]
--
Polar
TedColvin
were sick. After a brief confusion, I realized he was asking me if I were
nauseous. In the eastern US, sick and ill are virtually synonomous, but
apparently not in England. Possibly over here, "ill" is a bit more pseudo
elegant.
Michael West
Hotdog <Hot...@sidewalk.com> wrote in message
news:=+ocOACXgcVAdu...@4ax.com...
> Would you purposely using "she doesn't feel well" instead of "she's
> sick" out of the concern for the person's feeling.
>
In American usage, many people would find "she's sick" rather too clinical,
or blunt, or unsympathetic when applied to a casual acquaintance. But the
parent of a sick child might say that about the child.
"Ill" seems to be a more "polite" word than "sick." (Yet we commonly see
"sick days" and "sick
leave"). I don't know if this is a regional thing, or one of those
"sofa/couch" things that originated in notions of genteel propriety -- or if
I am just imagining it.
"She doesn't feel well" is fine, but it doesn't convey quite the same state
of health as "She is sick." One can "feel" sick without really being sick, I
suppose. Often, we really can't really know how someone else feels, nor can
we always know whether they are really sick or not. "Ill" comes in handy
because it seems to have a more general meaning. I personally would probably
choose one of these, in order of increasing severity:
"She said she felt ill"
"She isn't well"
"She is ill"
--
--
Michael West
Melbourne, Australia
Mark Brader
> In American usage, many people would find "she's sick" rather too clinical,
> or blunt, or unsympathetic when applied to a casual acquaintance. But the
> parent of a sick child might say that about the child.
We have in this city "the Hospital for Sick Children"; many people speak
of it as "Sick Kids", and they've adopted this style themselves for their
Internet domain of sickkids.on.ca.
From time to time people do suggest that the name is distasteful and should
be changed to "Toronto Children's Hospital" or something like that; but so
far this hasn't happened.
--
Mark Brader "A healthy nation is as unconscious of its
Toronto nationality as a healthy man of his bones."
msbr...@interlog.com -- Shaw
My text in this article is in the public domain.
mpl...@my-deja.com
willshakOu...@frontiernet.net wrote:
> Hotdog wrote:
> >
> > Would you purposely using "she doesn't feel well" instead of "she's
> > sick" out of the concern for the person's feeling.
> >
>
> > Can't think of a demo.
> >
> > And do you prefer the word "sick" to "ill" in the above sentence?
>
> 'not well' and 'ill' sound a little more formal than 'sick'.
> It all depends on who you are talking to at the moment.
>
As an American I agree, with the caution that, unless they have changed
their usage, _sick_ in Britain is confined to the meaning "nauseous."
There is an expression shared by both the Americans and the British,
_the sick bed,_ "the bed upon which one lies when he is ailing."
However, we seem to have generally abandoned this expression; we would
be much more likely to say "He's confined to his bed due to an illness"
or "He's bedridden."
> >
> > BTW, Happy Halloween to you all!
>
> --
> Bill -
> PSP Terrorist - D'Lanok de Caresk chapter - Anti-Troll Unit 235
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> The USS Salem, CA-139. The World's only preserved Heavy Cruiser,
> Quincy, MASS. http://www.frontiernet.net/~willshak/salem/salem.html
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> Remove OutSpammedDot from my e-mail address when replying directly.
> Any e-mail sent from @Hotmail.com is deleted without being read.
>
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Email: mplsrayPl...@yahoo.com
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John Holmes
Hotdog wrote in message <=+ocOACXgcVAduZ...@4ax.com>...
>Would you purposely using "she doesn't feel well" instead of "she's
>sick" out of the concern for the person's feeling.
>
>
>And do you prefer the word "sick" to "ill" in the above sentence?
>
"She doesn't feel well" conveys to me something less than "she's sick".
She might have a bit of a headache, or she's slightly nauseated from
eating one too many cream cakes, perhaps -- but she will feel better if
she sits quietly for half an hour. Alternatively, she might be just
beginning to come down with the 'flu but she isn't quite definitely sick
yet. If she goes on to develop a fever or starts vomiting or something
like that, then she would be "sick".
Sometimes also, "she's feeling unwell" might be used as a sort of
euphemism when she is actually sick but you don't want to give full
details.
--
Regards,
John.
Frances Kemmish
When I was a girl, "being unwell" was a euphemism for menstruating.
Fran
boblipton
Hotdog wrote:
> Would you purposely using "she doesn't feel well" instead of "she's
> sick" out of the concern for the person's feeling.
>
> Can't think of a demo.
>
> And do you prefer the word "sick" to "ill" in the above sentence?
These are subtle shades of difference and, as usual with such matters,
there is some overlap.
"She doesn't feel well" means there is something that is not keeping
her feeling.... well, well. Perhaps she ate too much Welsh rabbit at
dinner. Maybe she has a headache. Perhaps she has the bubonic plague
-- although this last would be severely understated.
She is ill; this. indicates that her condition is more severe. She
has morning sickness or a migraine headache, but she should be up and
about soon.
She is sick: her condition is ongoing. She has an ulcer or chronic
migraine. Indeed, she might have the bubonic plague. In that case,
I'm going to drop this posting and run.
Bob.
SLHinton17
>As an American I agree, with the caution that, unless they have changed
>their usage, _sick_ in Britain is confined to the meaning "nauseous."
********************
I, and probably most Brits, would prefer "nauseated" rather than "nauseous."
And in what I know of American usage, "sick" or "ill" describes a situation
that is a little more serious than "not feeling well." Many people I know
would go to work even if they were not feeling well, but would stay home if the
were sick. A further intensifier is "sick in bed."
For the British use of "sick" there is a classic limerick:
There was a young lady of Twickenham
Whose shoes were too tight to walk quick in 'em.
Looking white as a chalk
At the end of her walk,
She took 'em both off and was sick in 'em!
Sam Hinton
La Jolla, CA
Mark Brader
>> We have in this city "the Hospital for Sick Children";
> I always get a kick out of that name, wondering where the Hospital for
> Well Children might be located.
Norfolk, England? :-)
(There's a place there called Wells. I know it doesn't really work, but,
well,'s close enough for joke purposes.)
--
Mark Brader, Toronto "... trapped in a twisty little maze
msbr...@interlog.com of backslashes ..." -- Steve Summit
K1912
[...]
>She is sick: her condition is ongoing. She has an ulcer or chronic
>migraine. Indeed, she might have the bubonic plague. In that case,
>I'm going to drop this posting and run.
>
There's nothing like the bubonic plague to get the adrenaline (and feet) going.
George
Polar
>boblipton wrote:
>
>[...]
>
>>She is sick: her condition is ongoing.
This is what happens when a bastard word like "ongoing" is given
currency. It starts to wander off in directions where it has no
business.
She has an ulcer or chronic
>>migraine. Indeed, she might have the bubonic plague. In that case,
>>I'm going to drop this posting and run.
>>
>There's nothing like the bubonic plague to get the adrenaline (and feet) going.
--
Polar
N.Mitchum
------
> Would you purposely using "she doesn't feel well" instead of "she's
> sick" out of the concern for the person's feeling.
They don't mean the same thing. "Not well" is not the same as
"sick": the former means only that one does not fee quite right,
whereas the latter indicates that one is certifiably ill. "Not
well" can mean you have one or two symptoms of a cold and feel a
little under the weather; "sick" can mean you definitely have a
cold.
-----
> And do you prefer the word "sick" to "ill" in the above sentence?
>.....
"Ill" is slightly old-fashioned and not nearly so common as
"sick," but otherwise it's perfectly acceptable.
----NM
Einde O'Callaghan
>
<snip>
> "Ill" is slightly old-fashioned and not nearly so common as
> "sick," but otherwise it's perfectly acceptable.
>
This is a Pondian phenomenon. In Rightpondian circles "ill" is the
standard form, whereas "sick" is usually confined to describing feelings
of nausea or even their results, e.g. the statement: The dog was sick in
the corner" would imply that the dog had been lying in the corner not
feeling too healthy in Leftpondian circles, whereas in rightpondian
circles it would mean that the dog had left a little pile ocf vomit in
the corner.
On another tack: When I was young in Ireland we used "sick" in *both*
Leftpondian and Rightpondian senses. How we knew the sense being
referred to I can't really say. I think it was usually clear from
context.
I see no reason why this should be different today. Perhaps some of our
posters resident in the Emerald Isle would care to confirm or deny this.
--
eo'c
Brian J Goggin
<einde.oc...@planet-interkom.de> wrote:
[...]
>On another tack: When I was young in Ireland we used "sick" in *both*
>Leftpondian and Rightpondian senses. How we knew the sense being
>referred to I can't really say. I think it was usually clear from
>context.
>I see no reason why this should be different today. Perhaps some of our
>posters resident in the Emerald Isle would care to confirm or deny this.
One distinguishes between "I was sick", "I got sick" and "I felt
sick".
bjg
Evan Kirshenbaum
> N.Mitchum schrieb:
> >
> <snip>
>
> > "Ill" is slightly old-fashioned and not nearly so common as
> > "sick," but otherwise it's perfectly acceptable.
>
> This is a Pondian phenomenon. In Rightpondian circles "ill" is the
> standard form, whereas "sick" is usually confined to describing
> feelings of nausea or even their results, e.g. the statement: The
> dog was sick in the corner" would imply that the dog had been lying
> in the corner not feeling too healthy in Leftpondian circles,
> whereas in rightpondian circles it would mean that the dog had left
> a little pile ocf vomit in the corner.
No, that's pretty common on this side as well. I always interpreted
"being sick" for "vomiting" as a euphemism. To describe the dog
having an illness, we'd say something like, "the dog was in the
corner, sick". Someone who is nauseous to the point of vomiting might
well say "I don't feel well. I think I'm gonna be sick." If the
nausea were caused by, say, food poisoning, though, we wouldn't say
that they *were* sick. So you can not feel well and not be sick and
feel fine (or have your symptoms not include nausea) and be sick.
"Sick" is, however, generalized to any (short-term) medical ailment in
the phrases "sick leave", "sick day", and "out sick". (A longer term
absence due to a medical condition is "disability leave" or "on
disability".)
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Those who would give up essential
1501 Page Mill Road, Building 1U |Liberty, to purchase a little
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |temporary Safety, deserve neither
|Liberty nor Safety.
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com | Benjamin Franklin
(650)857-7572
Alasdair Baxter
wrote:
>And do you prefer the word "sick" to "ill" in the above sentence?
"Sick" often implies vomiting in the UK.
--
Alasdair Baxter, Nottingham, UK.Tel +44 115 9705100; Fax +44 115 9423263
"It's not what you say that matters but how you say it.
It's not what you do that matters but how you do it"
Alasdair Baxter
This is, indeed, true in the UK. However, "sick" is also used in a
formal sense to mean illness generally. Medical certificates in
respect of absence from work are often referred to as "sick notes" and
the benefit paid to people unable to work because of illness is called
"Sickness Benefit".
Jim Moser
Q: What is the difference between unlawful and illegal?
A: Unlawful means something is against the law, illegal is a big sick
bird.