Under the Weather

Covid-19

I got Covid-19 last week. I started feeling under the weather on Saturday so I took a home test to be sure it wasn’t Covid-19. The result was negative. However, the next day I started feeling worse. I figured that it was just a cold. I heard that there is also a cold virus going around. I didn’t sleep much on the Sunday night and I still felt pretty bad on Monday and I decided to take the day off work. I was mostly really tired and I didn’t want to make my coworkers sick. It is a good thing that I took the day off work as my some of my friends tested positive for Covid-19. I had met them on the previous Friday. So, even though I was sick, I went to the store and got some medicine and more Covid-19 tests.

When I got home, I took the test and sure enough, it came back positive. I let my work know about the results, but it was too late to get tested at the city health center. The next day I got my PCR test. At this point I was starting to feel a little bit better, but I was still under the weather. I didn’t get the result until Tuesday, but it was predictably Covid-19. I have been in self-isolation since the test. I won’t be allowed out of my house until next Tuesday.

One of the things that has surprised me about this experience is the lack of foreign language support. With such a large issue, you would think that the government would want everyone to be well informed. I mean, this is not a new issue. There is some old information on government websites, but all of the text messages, forms, and communication was in 100% Korean. There wasn’t even an attempt at English as you usually get in the health care sector. I don’t blame the health care professionals involved though. I think they are super busy these days. I mentioned about a month ago that Covid-19 cases were skyrocketing and the trend has continued. Recently, over 600,000 new cases were reported in one day. We are getting hit really hard right now.

 

Meaning

Under the weather means that you are not feeling well. It is most often used to talk about health (having a cold or the flu) but it can also be used to say that you are sad. It is rare, but can be used to talk about being drunk or hungover as well. Since there are many reasons why someone might feel unwell, this phrase is a little ambiguous. However, the assumption is that the person is a little sick.

Example: Sorry but I can’t come to work today. I am feeling under the weather.

 

Origin

Under the weather comes from sailing with the earliest mention in print from 1835 in the Jeffersonville Daily Evening News. When a sailor was not feeling well, they would go below deck where they are protected from the weather above. Ginger Software claims that the original phrase was under the weather bow. That means the sick sailor would go to the side of the ship from which the bad weather was coming from.

 

Seasickness

Under the weather probably originally referred to seasickness. It is a type of motion sickness, like carsickness  or airsickness. People affected by this may have cold sweats, nausea, and vomiting. One third of people are prone to getting motion sickness. Basically, your brain is confused because it is getting information from your inner hears, muscles and eyes that you are moving even though your body is stationary. This confusion can make you feel sick.

I am one of those people prone to motion sickness and I felt it a little bit in Australia. I went scuba diving in Australia a long time ago. It was a 3 day excursion and was really fun. I remember that I felt ill on the first day at sea, but my body adjusted by the next day. I guess we technically were under the weather at night in our tiny beds. That being said, by the time we reached shore, we were all adjusted to the sea conditions. However, we were not adjusted to the land conditions. One of the funny things was existing the boat because it was hard to walk. We must have looked drunk because we swayed back and forth. Our body had gotten used to the motion of the ocean and it took a few minutes to recalibrate our bodies.

 

See Also: What doesn't kill you, Black and Blue

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Resources:

https://www.gingersoftware.com/content/phrases/under-the-weather/
https://knowyourphrase.com/under-the-weather
https://www.theidioms.com/under-the-weather/
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/12782-motion-sickness