More up-to-date alternative for "avoiding something like the plague"?

Question

In Europe, the last Plague pandemic took place quite some time ago, so, personally, I have never had to avoid the plague. Yet we still say, "avoiding something like the plague". Is there an alternative expression I could use that is based on something more recent and familiar?

For myself, "avoiding something like Facebook" would work, because I avoid Facebook ... uh ... like the Plague. But since Facebook has "1.79 billion monthly active users" (according to a source used on Wikipedia), that expression might confuse a few people.

What alternatives to "avoiding something like the plague" could people use that are based on something more recent and familiar? Creativity is allowed.

Updates:

1. In response to a comment by @WS2 ("Why would you need something current?"): "Avoiding something/someone like the plague" is an example of language that has lost its once powerful meaning because people have no experience with the phenomenon it mentions. And it is overused. See Avoiding clichés on the Oxford Dictionaries blog and Clichés: Avoid Them Like The Plague.
2. I originally asked, "What alternatives to "avoiding something like the plague" would make more sense today?" However, since my intention is not to replace the expression in the English language as a whole, I have reworded the question.

Answer 1

I would consider using "avoid like anthrax". Anthrax became quite popular after the news that it was tested and used in Iraq by the Saddam Hussein regime and letters loaded with the biological weapon anthrax began surfacing in the US.

Concentrated anthrax spores were used for bioterrorism in the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States, delivered by mailing postal letters containing the spores. The letters were sent to several news media offices and two Democratic senators: Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Patrick Leahy of Vermont. As a result, 22 were infected and five died.

I just Googled its usage by typing in "avoid like anthrax" and it seems to be used.

I don't want to tell you what to do, Zoot, but I think Tommy Lonighan is a gangster and a racist prick who you ought to avoid like anthrax.

[JAMES LEE BURKE – THE ROBICHEAUX COLLECTION]

"Avoid like ricin" and "avoid like sarin gas" seem to be used, too.

Answer 2

If you are going to use an idiom, or simile, go ahead and use "avoid [something] like the plague".

"Avoid [something] like the plague" is an idiom that is commonly understood. There is nothing that I have thought of, or seen suggested here, that carries the same connotations, or would be as widely understood as "avoid * like the plague". Trying to use something else as a replacement for "plague" is effectively attempting to create your own idiom. We all know what "the plague" was and that we want to avoid it.

People don't need the thing which is stated as what we are to avoid to be something that is/was more immediate to them. If this was the case, then the "Spanish Flu", or just "Flu" would have taken hold in the 1920's after 500 million people were affected by it worldwide. Google Ngrams does not find any uses of things similar to "avoid * like Spanish Flu", or "avoid * like flu", whereas "avoid * like the plague" clearly has a reasonable amount of usage.

My expectation is that when people read/hear "avoid * like the plague", a significant number are including an interpretation of the idiom as if it was stated as "avoid it like a plague", where plague means any of (merriam-webster.com):

1.   a : a disastrous evil or affliction : calamity
     b : a destructively numerous influx

2.   a : an epidemic disease causing a high rate of mortality : pestilence

rather than just specifically "the Plague":

2.   b : a virulent contagious febrile disease that is caused by a bacterium (Yersinia pestis) and that occurs in bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic forms —called also black death

Thus, the idiom, "avoid * like the plague", already allows people to substitute in, in their own minds, whatever thing they feel should be avoided.

Using something other than "the plague" sounds, to me, made up or forced. If that is what you are trying to convey in what you are writing, then go ahead and use something else. If you are trying to use something which feels natural when people are reading/hearing it, go ahead and use "avoid * like the plague".

The articles say not use the cliché, not just to update it

What the articles which you linked in the Question are trying to say is not that you should use a different cliché-like phase in place of the cliché you are replacing, but that you should reword, or re-think, what you are writing so that you don't end up at a point where using the cliché feels like the correct phrase. Ultimately, the point of those articles is not that the cliché should be updated to something that is more relevant to the audience, but that neither the cliché, nor an updated version of it, should be used.

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Hat tip to WS2, who posted as the first comment on the question that "avoid [something] like the plague" does not need to be updated.

Answer 3

As long as you're insisting on the form "avoid (something) like (something else)", I don't think there is anything as good as the original. Substituting another word might be a clever twist, but it will still be a twist of the phrase they already know.

But if you're OK with changing the phrasing, there are some other good idioms that can convey a similar meaning:

• My son always seems to make himself scarce when there is yard work to be done.
• Julie didn't like Don's overwhelming cologne, so she always gave him a wide berth when passing his desk.
• Randy tried to steer clear of the candy dish, it was just too tempting.
• Sam loves to talk politics in the office, but I wouldn't touch that with a 10-foot pole.

Answer 4

I avoid X like I avoid taxes. Wikipedia.

Tax avoidance is the legal usage of the tax regime in a single territory to one's own advantage to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law. (emphasis added).

I added emphasis in the definition to distinguish tax avoidance from tax evasion, which is illegal.

Tax evasion, on the other hand, is the general term for efforts by individuals, corporations, trusts and other entities to evade taxes by illegal means

One simple tactic of tax avoidance (or, more precisely tax deferment): Open an IRA. The money put into the IRA is taxed only when you withdraw it, years down the road. Moreover, your income and income tax rate may be lower after you retired than before. Other tactics: Postponing income from what has been a high income year to what you know will be a low-income year with hence a lower income tax rate. Bunching deductions in one year to overcome a floor on allowed deductions. Making a charitable deduction of appreciated stock rather than cash. Taking a vacation in s state with no sales tax and making major purchases there. There are more elaborate schemes, all legal, but requiring much more work to pull off, and more money to make them worthwhile.

Answer 5

A somewhat updated version is avoid it like the clap. I say "somewhat" because the clap sounds very 1970s to me; I guess you could say avoid it like an STD but that doesn't have quite the same resonance, and avoid it like gonorrhea is kind of TMI. (Definition of "the clap" from The Free Dictionary's Medical Dictionary here.)

Some examples of usage:

avoid it like the clap. (Yelp list of "places to avoid... well... like the clap".)

The other rule is: Ask yourself, “Would a partially toothless hooker named Whistles enjoy this trend?” If so, avoid it like the clap. (Clinton Kelly, Freakin' Fabulous: How to Dress, Speak, Behave, Eat, Drink, Entertain, Decorate, and Generally Be Better Than Everyone Else, 2008)

Avoid it like the clap. Unless you like the clap. Then this place may be for you. (Topix review of a haunted house, by user "It burns")

Avoid it like poison also gets quite a few hits, as seen here and in this ngram. It's a classic, though I don't know how much of a punch it packs. I suspect most of us today only really think about poison when our toddler somehow manages to drink a half-full bottle of perfume when we looked away for, like, twenty seconds or when we're trying to figure out how to get rid of pests.

Personally, for a real 21st century squick-factor I might use

Avoid like bedbugs

This is a problem that is plaguing (sorry) hotels, colleges, and the like, and individuals are taking measures like checking online registries and mattress corners to try to avoid them when they travel. I would link to articles on the subject, but I try to avoid pictures and stories as much as possible.

Answer 6

A slightly more modern expression could be to

not touch it with a 10ft pole

(idiomatic) To avoid something at all costs; to refuse to associate with something; signifies a strong aversion.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/not_touch_something_with_a_ten_foot_pole

It is about as old as Electricity, possibly coming from

This expression may have been derived by the 10-foot poles that electricians and other utility workers use to de-energize transformers and other high voltage utility equipment before performing maintenance.

(from the Wiktionary link)

Answer 7

I feel like the phrase, "Drop it like it's hot" could be adapted here to "Avoid it like it's hot."

I feel like I could hear Snoop Dogg going, "'Void it like it's hot. 'Void it like it's hot."

Meanwhile, if you want something else, urbandictionary suggests avoid like the Velvet Fog but I can honestly say that I have never heard this phrase and neither has Ngrams. And I don't know why velvet fog would be capitalized.

Answer 8

Although I have not tried ascertain the origins of the term, which means I do not know whether it would qualify as new or not, however, as it can be used in similar situations, so take a look and see if it meets your criteria.

To avoid “X” as if your life depends on it.

With maximum, possibly desperate, effort or energy. (The Free Dictionary — Idioms Section)

He avoids Facebooks as if his life depends on it.

You could also use the following:

To run for cover

to run fast in order to avoid gunfire.

Just a glimpse or mentioning of X makes Y run for cover.

Mostly used in the army to indicate or announce to the soldiers that they urgently need to find shelter from enemy fire as the onslaught could prove fatal. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find any credible sources to corroborate its usage. For that, you’ll have to spend some time on Google.

Answer 9

The current global health crisis is an obvious source of new suggestions:

• Avoiding something like the corona virus.
• Avoiding something like the rona.

COVID-19 is strictly speaking the name of the pandemic, whereas the name of the disease [severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)] doesn't quite roll off the tongue. For these reasons, the above suggestions sound better.

Answer 10

Let's move beyond the disease route, and focus on what people actually avoid:

Avoid it like gluten.