How do words work...

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:00]So, my question for all of you at home watching this is if the dictionaries of the earth, which preserve our definitions of our languages we use to communicate with each other, if the definition of the word virus in all of them reads a poison or a venom, particularly a snake's venom, I would like to ask you all, how come when I go to the CDC's website that is not the definition they give me of the word virus?

[00:00:26]How come the FDA doesn't give me that same definition for the word virus? How come the Vanderbilt Hospital, John Hopkins, uh the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, how come all of their websites have a different definition for the word virus?

[00:00:41]And then I need to ask you this.

[00:00:44]If a virus, by definition, has always meant, even to medicine, they know it because medicine only uses the Latin language.

[00:00:54]They are beholding to the Latin language to make all medical doctors, nurses, staff, and surgeons look superior in intelligence to you cuz you don't know Latin. So, they're all forced to learn Latin. They all know that Latin is the language they're all speaking to you.

[00:01:10]My question for you is this. Now that you've learned that the word virus means poison or venom, my question for you to this, Laban, and I'll leave this with your audiences.

[00:01:19]How do they create an influenza virus annual season?

[00:01:25]And how do they create a common cold virus annual season if a virus in Latin definitions in English translates to poison, especially of snake's venom, or venom? Wow, that is such a brain-dead argument. It is unbelievable.

[00:01:46]So, first of all, it's an argument from definition, a semantic argument, and trying to get into weave this kind of bizarre conspiracy theory. But, let me correct him on a couple of things first, and then I'll get to the meat of why this is nonsensical. First of all, uh medical terminology is mostly 80 90% uh Greek and Latin, not just Latin. It's actually more Greek than Latin. It is more Greek than it is Latin. So, he's factually incorrect there. And this is not a nitpick because his poor scholarship is why he partly why he gets to such ridiculous conclusions.

[00:02:27]Second, has this guy never heard of etymology?

[00:02:32]Words have histories. They evolve in their meaning. So, and this is very easy information for anyone to find. The etymology of the word virus. Yes, it does come from a Latin root that initially meant something like poisonous fluid or poison fluid or poison.

[00:02:54]It, you know, later was adapted to mean in by middle by middle English time, venom. Uh and then the you know, the word evolved to mean um since it was like a poison or a venom, when a liquid was isolated like from pus or as part of a disease, right? Then um they said, well, this is like a a virus, right? It this this liquid is part of the disease. It contains the substance of the disease. And in some cases, you could actually transmit the disease if you introduce this liquid, this poison, from one organism to another.

[00:03:40]So, they called that a virus, right?

[00:03:42]This substance that's causing the disease is a virus, meaning a poison.

[00:03:48]But, then guess what happened? We discovered actual viruses, that what we now call in modern times viruses. We discovered that the the disease-causing agent in these situations was not a a liquid or a poison. It was a a little bit of code, of genetic code.

[00:04:10]It was, you know, a virus, a bit of RNA or DNA with a protein coat that can replicate inside of cells, only inside of cells cuz it doesn't have all the machinery it needs itself to reproduce.

[00:04:23]It has to use the reproductive machinery of ce- of the cells of the host that it infects. And so, the term then carried forward to refer to viruses.

[00:04:35]But, that's sort of the evolution of that term.

[00:04:39]This guy's trying to make a conspiracy theory out of etymology. I mean, at the ignorance and the lack of of real intellectual honesty is absolutely staggering here. And then, of course, you know, he's also trying to say that like dictionary definitions are different than the medical definitions.

[00:04:59]Well, but it's not really true. You could look up the definition of the word virus even in non-medical dictionaries, and they will give you the modern definition, you know, RNA or DNA bits of code infecting agents.

[00:05:13]Uh they may give you the older terms as well. They also give you even more modern definitions like it could also refer to a computer virus. Is that we're going to make a some conspiracy theory out of that as well because we call computer viruses viruses?

[00:05:30]Um so, then again, so he's somehow using this etymology nonsensical argument to make it seem like viruses are just poison, which we know now not to be true. Therefore, how could there be a flu season?

[00:05:50]It's like, well, because you're wrong, because we've proven through multiple multiple scientific studies over a decades now that viruses are replicating particles, and they do they some of them can have a seasonality to them. You know, the flu season is the flu season mainly because of people being in school, and that's when you know, when you're more likely to transfer those viruses. Still open question about how much temperature plays a role. Um but, it seems like people congregating indoors is probably the primary reason why there's a flu season, right?

[00:06:26]Um different viruses do better in different times of the year, different conditions, et cetera. Some viruses are not seasonal. Not all viruses are seasonal. Some are. Uh this is again pretty well established through a very fairly large body of evidence. So, the type of argument he's putting out is just ridiculous. It's an argument from definition. He gets all the details wrong cuz he doesn't really know what he's talking about. Uh so, again, with all of that being true, this is not somebody that you should listen to or take seriously at all.