Category talk:Typhoid Mary
This real-world reference is a little jarring to me. How about "Disease Carrier"? -- Gonzoron 15:49, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Actually, it is not as precise, for we wouldn't apply Typhoid Mary to natural lycanthropes but would apply Disease Carrier to them.
Who is say that there isn't Typhoid in Ravenloft? As to Marys, yes that one is rooted at the heart of the Christian tradition, still there must be one or two about. Is there a biologist in the house with a scientific name for a Typhonid Mary?Cure 19:40, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Strangely enough, the Aberrant Wererat has the Typhoid Rat extraordinary ability of being a Typhoid Mary. Now I don't like the rat part, especial, but perhaps we could replace Mary with something more Ravenloftish. Typhoid Eva?Cure 06:22, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
It's not so much the Typhoid or the Mary alone, but w:Typhoid Mary was a real person, who didn't exist in Ravenloft, as far as we know. Apparently, there's a technical term for it: w:Asymptomatic carrier or w:Healthy carrier, which wouldn't apply to lycanthropes. Want to use that? Or is it too scientific sounding? -- Gonzoron 15:50, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm more in favor of healthy carrier or even asymptomatic carrier. No one's going to be searching for them, but that's true of anything else we'd put, too. DeepShadow 16:20, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
We have Machiavellianism, if not Machiavelli himself, and Circe Touch, if not Circe herself, running around in Ravenloft. And I once complained that tropics doesn't make any sense in Ravenloft, given that the term is rooted in science of latitudes that presupposes a globe, only to be told that that matters not one wit. So I am not sure that I see how this real world reference is in special need of squelching, especially as it is more descriptive than anything else that we can come up with and in fact is used in the Book of S___ description of Professor Abelhous Nicholsi. Yes, the category also exists in the real world wiki too, but that could probably be said of a lot, or perhaps even most, of our categories.Cure 17:59, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
You raise some excellent points. Since much of language is idomatic, we're not going to be able to purge all real-world references. For some reason, this one jars me. But I can write it off as my own hangup and let it stand. -- Gonzoron 18:40, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
