Grippe

By Deane Barker • • tags: medicine •
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From the graphic novel of <em>Casino Royale</em>, Bond’s friend Mathis caused feedback in a microphone to harm the eavesdropper who is pretending to be sick with the flu.

From the graphic novel of Casino Royale, Bond’s friend Mathis caused feedback in a microphone to harm the eavesdropper who is pretending to be sick with the flu.

This is an old word for the “flu.”

Why I Looked It Up

In the James Bond novel Casino Royale, Bond’s hotel room is bugged by the manager’s wife, who pretends to be sick with the flu so she can eavesdrop.

Update

In a book about the Vanderbilt family, I found this:

[he] had taken suddenly ill with an attack of “the grippe,” a Gilded Age term for influenza…

Curiously, the Gilded Age was the late 1800s and early 1900s, while Casino Royale was written (and set) in 1953.

Links from this – Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty April 24, 2022
Enormously entertaining history of the Vanderbilt family by CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who was a Vanderbilt on his mother’s side. Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt was a self-made man. He started ferrying people on a small boat around New York Harbor and ended up becoming the richest man the world had...