Listen in, team. There are two key definitions for this fascinating animal…the ‘swine’. See, if you drop a letter you get, ‘wine’ and, if you drop another, you ‘win’. Are you following me closely, here? But not too close, OK. Ta.

Apparently, when you put the ‘s’ and the ‘e’ back on ‘win’… you lose.

One online dictionary describes a ‘swine’ as… any stout, cloven-hoofed artiodactyl of the Old World family Suidae, having a thick hide sparsely covered with coarse hair, a disk-like snout, and an often short, tasselled tail: now of worldwide distribution and hunted or raised for its meat and other products.
That’s what we need in the All Black scrum right now, dammit!

In summary… a pig. I knew that!

The other definition, from the same source, also describes a ‘swine’ as… a coarse, gross, or brutishly sensual person. I say, what? Back to the ‘pig’. Now, if you are merely a ‘swine’, you rate poorly, and Townies will snort with contempt, when they hear your name.

However, my online source has a definition that can move a ‘swine’ up the social ladder, by introducing it as… ‘an omnivorous, even-toed ungulate of the family Suidae’. The ‘Family Suidae’. Cor. Sounds like a spiffy lot, wot? And to be an ‘ungulate’, even. That’s class, baby!

You may have heard, that as part of its upward mobility, our mate ‘swine’ has been, you know, ‘linked’ with long-time health celebrity known as ‘Flu’. According to my source, ‘Flu’ is better known as… a specific variety of influenza, usually named for its point of dissemination or its animal vector. Oooh.

It’s starting to develop into a ‘whodunit’, dunnit? I am holidaying in Paris, and, without warning, ‘Aaachooo!’ and I don’t feel so good. Bingo. I have found the ‘Paris flu’ (the ‘point of dissemination’). Even more sinister. I do an ‘Aaaachooo!’ near a goldfish, and then feel a titch less than reasonable…

Whammo! I pick up ‘goldfish flu’. Embarrassing, that is! But, wait. The plot thickens. My online dictionary thingie reveals, and I’ll whisper it, so I won’t freak anyone out… that the third party in this saga is… I’ll write it fast so it won’t look so scary… pandemic. I’m all goose bumpy now.

If I had been standing beside a goose and went ‘Aaachooo!’… Back to ‘pandemic’. It says that it is… (of a disease) prevalent throughout an entire country, continent, or the whole world; epidemic over a large area. Yes, yes, I had to confirm what an ‘epidemic’ is.

It is… a rapid spread, growth, or development : an unemployment epidemic. That’s what it said, folks. So confusing. A pandemic therefore, is one big hua of an epidemic, caused by the place where it began or by the creature you were looking at, possibly causing massive unemployment. ‘Aaachooo!’

Stats confirm that about 500,000 people worldwide (36,000 in the U.S.) die from the usual, seasonal flu, flu every year. These people mostly have weak immune defences because they are very young or very old. I wonder what we should call that? Maybe, a ‘normaldemic’…

Yes, we have to be careful. We have to keep warm. We have to sleep lots. We have to eat good. We have to exercise much. We have to be aware. But, you know, I am seriously impressed. While skeptics said, ‘Pigs Can Fly. Yeah, right!... ‘swine flu’! 

Join me on my maverick personal growth and business dynamics Course, The TERRIFIC Seminar to make sure that, your future stays safe! Ask me for the good oil. I relax at duitdammit@xtra.co.nz Cheers.