1396 Catarrh

I ran across an old word the other day and I think it’s a shame we don’t use it more. It’s kind of spelled funny and in a way it looks like it comes from the days of Morocco hashish parlors or Indian opium dens. Like some British Colonial spelling somehow.
C-a-t-a-r-r-h-.
You don’t see too many words ending in H. Unless they’re like “with” or “pith.” Come to think of it, pith helmets come from that British colonial stuff too.
In any event, the word is catarrh, pronounced and inflected like guitar. And it can mean congestion. Or at least a lot of phlegm. It harks back to those words we hardly hear any more, like chilblains and consumption.
Not consumption like it’s time to go shopping, but consumption like some wasting disease of the lungs. What they once used to name tuberculosis or lung cancer.
People, would say they had a catarrh when they were full of snot. It means “inflammation of the mucus membranes in your air passages.” “I’ve got a catarrh” was roughly synonymous with “I’ve got a cold” or “I’ve got a bug.”
Alas, all good words must pass. You don’t hear it much today. Perhaps because so many people own guitars and for someone to say “I’ve got a catarrh” would cause confusion.
“What’s new?”
“I’ve got a catarrh.”
“Really...Gibson or Fender?”
“Neither—in my nose.”
“You’ve got a guitar in your nose? No wonder it’s so red and swollen.”
On the other hand, it could be confused with the Arab country Qatar too. Which would actually make a fine little poem.
Wetness dripped on my guitar
from my nose, from my catarrh,
for a cure searched near and far,
and finally dried it in Qatar.
America, ya gotta love it.