Disaster has a pretty name
Posted by Anna Elissa on 29 April 2008
On the other day I was Googling some information on ascariasis, but apparently I misspelled “ascaris” into “ascaria”. Guess what I found??
PEOPLE.
Yes. Real people. And they bear the name “Ascaria”. How crazy is that?? Any sane parents would never name their precious daughters “Ascaria” if only they’d known that it is only one letter different from this:
Ascaris lumbricoides is a parasitic worm of the phylum Nematode (roundworms). Human is its definitive host, which means this worm cannot live as an adult worm outside of the human body. Its infectious eggs must enter our body through ingestion (usually in contaminated food) and there they will hatch into larvae. Infection with A. lumbricoides is called “ascariasis”, and it’s quite a nasty tropical disease, really. It’s relatively easy to treat, however. Drug of choice includes albendazole 400 mg per oral, or its synthetic derivative mebendazole 500 mg per oral. Pyrantel pamoate 11 mg/kg per oral may also be used as an alternative.
Okay, anyways, I have noticed that a lot of bad stuff have nice names. Tornadoes and hurricanes are named beautifully — Andrea, Ernesto, Katrina, Mindy, Nicholas, Paloma… I’ve been so fascinated by such fact. I wonder if this naming phenomenon is just a coincidence for the sake of giving things names, or are we so captivated by the wondrous might of nature that we seem to almost… worship it, if you please?
Hell hath no fury like Mother Earth doth.
Hey, let’s find and collect pretty names that belong to disastrous agents! I think it’d be fun (in a dark sense of humour, perhaps). So what say you?
Btw I just happen to remember that I used to know a little girl whose name is Hernia 
~Anna
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PS. If anybody could explain to me the differences between a tornado, a hurricane, a typhoon, and a cyclone, that would be highly appreciated. Sure there is Wikipedia, but it only defines, not compare and contrast.
