No, “Chicken Pox” Is Not Plural!
You don’t get “them”; you get “it”!
Okay, folks, this is a pet peeve. No animals ever were or will be harmed from this. Nor will small children or old people. It’s not a nuclear or biological weapon.
It’s not even a nasty little splinter.
It’s just a pet peeve, simple as that. Not even the kind of pet you have to feed, water, or ‘scoop up after.’
It makes me want to tear my hair out every time I hear someone say, “Chicken pox? Yeah, I had them.”
No. You had “IT.” It’s the name of the disease.
No one says “Smallpox? Yeah, we got rid of them.” We say, “We got rid of it.” So why do you think chicken pox is a “them”?
It’s like measles, which is also not a plural disease. You don’t have one measle or two or more measles.
And then there’s Part Two of my pet peeve, the part where people say, “I had a pock on my (fill in the name of the appropriate body part).”
No, you didn’t have a pock. It is not “chicken pocks,” meant to describe the “papules,” which become “blisters,” which eventually become scabs. No “pocks.”
Just plain, old, average, everyday, run-of-the-mill, garden variety, singular “chicken pox.”
