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English Language Usage: Of A Disease: To Contact Or Contract? - Education - Nairaland

Nairaland ForumNairaland GeneralEducationEnglish Language Usage: Of A Disease: To Contact Or Contract? (3652 Views)

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English Language Usage: Of A Disease: To Contact Or Contract? by NifemiOlu(op):
It is not uncommon to see and hear people write and say or use the words ‘contact’ when talking about an infection or a disease.

Speaker 1: He contacted HIV from unsterilized needles.

Speaker 2: He contracted Zika virus while on holiday in Brazil.

Let’s refer to dictionaries for help.

Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (OALD) defines:

CONTACT (n) (medical) a person who may be infectious because he/she has been near to somebody with a CONTAGIOUS disease.

CONTRACT (v) (medical) to get an illness.

Encarta Dictionaries defines:
CONTACT: disease carrier: a person or an animal seen as a possible carrier of an infectious disease.

CONTRACT: (Trans V) get illness: to catch or develop an illness.

Speaker 2 is correct.

I hope this improves your grammar.

By: NifemiOlu
Admin: Olukoni relationship blog (https://nifemiolu..com.ng )
Re: English Language Usage: Of A Disease: To Contact Or Contract? by NifemiOlu(op):
Password: Lalasticlala
Re: English Language Usage: Of A Disease: To Contact Or Contract? by JonTal:
This post is funny, @NifemiOlu. Good job
Re: English Language Usage: Of A Disease: To Contact Or Contract? by JonTal:
NifemiOlu:
Password: Lalasticlala
It just baffles me that a lot of very good threads in various sections of this forum are never taken to front page, whereas rubbish threads are displayed there daily. Wonder what jobs the mods do.
Re: English Language Usage: Of A Disease: To Contact Or Contract? by NifemiOlu(op): 7:38pm On Jun 22, 2016
JonTal:
It just baffles me that a lot of very good threads in various sections of this forum are never taken to front page, whereas rubbish threads are displayed there daily. Wonder what jobs the mods do.
Er, I have mentioned lalasticlala so tey I don tire. Some of us take time to write our stuff carefully aiming to benefit people but the mighty ones of Nairaland...
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