Timeline for a cold vs flu / the flu
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
6 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 26, 2016 at 17:26 | comment | added | Alan Carmack | As a native speaker of American English, I find How long have you had a cold? unremarkable (perfectly acceptable) even after it has been introduced into the discourse. Also, in fact, we can say How long have you had the cold? to bring up (introduce) the person's cold as a topic. | |
| Mar 14, 2012 at 19:14 | vote | accept | nicholas ainsworth | ||
| Mar 12, 2012 at 12:44 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | Yeah, I probably would myself. Referring to someone having the flu sounds a bit dated/rustic to me - like saying they've got the plague or something. | |
| Mar 12, 2012 at 7:11 | comment | added | Barrie England | @FumbleFingers: Good point. Still, I think I would always omit 'the' myself. | |
| Mar 11, 2012 at 22:22 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | Re your last sentence, OP asked about flu, not influenza. And as this NGram shows, "has the flu" is far more common than "has flu". | |
| Mar 10, 2012 at 10:31 | history | answered | Barrie England | CC BY-SA 3.0 |