When I first heard the word ‘hypochondriac’ I couldn’t have been older than ten. One of the elders was using it with abandon. I recognise that now as something people do when they’ve just come upon a new (and interesting word) which they’d like other people to hear as well (and wonder what one earth the said word could mean?).
Now, these people who are hearing this word for the first time generally fall into two categories: Those who will ask at once what the word means; and those who immediately think the user of the word is a bit of a snooty show-off and should, therefore, be ignored. So when one hears a person use the word hypochondriac time and time again, it is safe to assume, I think, that he’s been ignored quite a bit and is dying for someone to ask him what on earth it means.
As a child, I think I fell into this third category. If I heard someone use a word that was new to me more than once, I took it upon myself to relieve the said person of this repetitive burden by asking, as in this case, “Uncle, what does hypochondriac mean?”
Back in the day youngsters like me addressed all adult males as “uncle”. The ‘hypochondriac’ uncle’s first response was to tell me that I was possibly too young to be using such words let alone asking what they meant. Which, of course, led me to thinking that it was one of those ‘taboo’ four-letter words that youngsters may have learned from their peers, but must never utter in the presence of elders. Some of those words, despite being classified as ‘four-letter’ often constituted more letters than could be counted on the fingers of both hands.
Hypochondriac, I assumed, was one such example. But uncle, probably realising that this is the last time someone may actually ask about the word, changed his mind and said something like, “Ah, well, one more word in your vocabulary cannot do any harm.” And so, I learned that the term had its origin, as has a lot of our language, from ancient Greek.
The constant moan, “It’s all Greek to me”, really makes sense now in my later years. Anyhow, I was told that in Greek, hypochondria referred to the region between the ribs and the navel. Hypo in Greek was really ‘hupo’ which stood for ‘below’ while ‘kondros’, in the same language, referred to cartilage.
Looking back now, I’m amused at this uncle who, from doubting that I was the right age to learn one new word, albeit large, followed that up with a barrage of extra information. At the age of ten, this was indeed hard to process. But that wasn’t the end of it. It was only the introduction to the current-day meaning of the word which, according to uncle, referred to someone suffering from a series of real or imagined ailments. It constitutes an abnormality, I was informed, not in those exact words.
I think he simply said: “It’s not normal (to be a hypochondriac.)”. I am reminded today of my mother’s dad who was the direct opposite to a hypochondriac. He refused any mention of medication and forbade the words ‘doctor’ and ‘hospital’ in sentences whenever he fell ill. He hated being fussed upon, even when he was fading fast with stomach cancer and had to be literally manhandled into a hospital, all of which dare I say came too late.
An extreme philosophy like his, though, makes me wonder. Would he have lived longer had he placed himself in the hands of medical science?
In reminiscing about this to my friend Barney the other day, Barney, who is Mr Snooty Show-Off personified, replied: “Ah well, Kev, some of us are and some of us aren’t.” “Aren’t what?” I asked. “Valetudinarians,” he replied, and I knew he was itching for me to enquire what or who a valetudinarian might be. I kept mum.
Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney, Australia.
