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N amusing typo appeared in an online article last week. At least I think it was a typo. The sentence read: “If he stays in jail he might contact a disease.”

Most would assume there was simply an “r” missing from what should have been “contract”, but perhaps this was not just a case of rapid typing — perhaps prison authorities were genuinely concerned that the inmate in question was planning to place a collect call to Mr Measles, or surreptitiously pass a sick note to Miss Scarlet Fever. Was it some change in the infection of his voice that made them suspicious?

Like “infection” and “inflection”, “contact” and “contract” are a bit like Vladimir Putin and Macaulay Culkin — they look eerily alike but come from different parents.

“Contract” is from the Latin contrahere — to draw together in agreement. “Contact” is from contingere — to touch or seize.

It gets confusing, of course. “Contagious” comes from the same root as contact. Having contact with an infected person can cause one to contract a contagious disease. Contagion requires one body to physically touch another, which is what separates the contagious from the infectious.

“Infectious” from the Latin inficere (to spoil or stain) refers to the communication of a disease via air or fluid. So you can be infected without being infectious, but you might still be contagious.

Influenza, mostly abbreviated to flu, is an interesting disease. As far as I know it is both infectious and contagious, but unlike other afflictions (rubella, measles, scarlet fever and chicken pox, to name a few) it does not take its name from its symptoms, even though it sounds like a sneeze. The Italians, during a mysterious outbreak of illness in 1743, decided to call the new epidemic influenza, meaning the influence of the stars on earthly matters, because they had no idea where it came from, and no cure for it.

“Cure” is from the Latin curare (which, to complicate matters, is also the name of a poison). The Online Etymology Dictionary says that “most words for cure in European languages originally applied to the person being treated but now can be used with reference to the disease, too”.

This might be accepted practice, but if you ask me it still sounds odd when someone says, “the doctor cured my chicken pox”. Is the chicken pox feeling better now?

That reminds me of a man I met recently, who told me he was a “cured meat supplier”. I told him I was glad he had recovered from his compulsion to hand out rump steaks wherever he went. He looked at me strangely.

Suppliers of cured meat have been around since man discovered the magic of drying, salting and brining. Curators are more recent. “Curate” comes from the same family as “cure”. It originally meant “to take care of” but is now just a fancy way of saying “manage”. Everyone’s a curator these days. A recent ad for kitchen appliances promised to help “curate your time”. I’m expecting any day to see a Pikitup truck with “carefully curated garbage” painted on its side.

Another increasingly popular job description is “content provider”. It is encouraging to know that so many suppliers of reading matter are feeling mellow about their jobs. I’d feel more content about mine if our buzzword-laden lingo could be cured of curation. When it comes to diseases one would prefer not to contact, curate is my worst. Or, as the German cured meat supplier might say, my wurst. LS

E-mail your observations about words and language to degroots@sundaytimes.co.za On Twitter @deGrootS1