How long does it take to recover from lurgy? Has anyone ever died of it?!
Question: About the same recovery time as cooties. No, no one has died from either.
Answers: About the same recovery time as cooties. No, no one has died from either.
The "dreaded lurgy", also spelt "lurgi" is English slang for flu or flu like symptoms and as a general rule it's not something that usually kills people. However as with all flu symptoms, you might feel so sick for a week or two as to wish you were dead!
The lurgy is a mythical condition. It is a slang word usually applied to a non-specific viral illness.
Lurgy isn't a real illness, the word entered popular use following its use on The Goon Show on the radio in 1956, The show was called 'The dreaded lurgie strikes Britain', written by Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes, who invented a fictitious disease (the dreaded lurgie).
It's not clear that the word was entirely their invention, as no-one ever asked them on record where they got the word from, and research has found an English dialect word 'fever-lurgy', meaning laziness that dates from the 16th century.