For the love of $deity, people–read, or I’m going to start billing you for the inhalers I need when your ridiculous mistakes cause a laughing fit that gives me trouble breathing.

You might want to stop for a moment and think about, or perhaps do some research into, how diseases have ravished human populations for years.

Jesus…that’s quite a mental image! 😆 My mind made “diseases” look like the Ring-wraiths from LOTR, mounted on black horses, cackling evilly; shrieking victims draped across silver-trimmed saddles. You’re an idiot. I laughed and I laughed, then I gasped and laughed some more. In fairness, I know that “ravished” and “ravaged” sound similar, but if you’d ever taken the trouble to pick up something with more letters in it than a comic  book, you’d know that they’re two very different words. It’s abundantly clear that you think they’re the same one…much to my amusement.

Ravish means to rape or violate, or to take by force and carry away, but even for the second meaning, it’s usually the womenfolk who are being carried away, whether by pirates or soldiers, or…well, someone who’s got designs upon their feminine nether regions. It’s a word often found in the “bodice-ripper” romance novels, but not in a medical journal.

Ravage means to destroy or devastate, and one of its most common uses is to describe the effects of a disease. The Black Plague ravaged the population of Europe in the 14th century. His body was ravaged by advanced-stage stomach cancer. It can also mean to pillage; as an invading army might do to a city.

Diseases never ravish, and although soldiers or pirates might, they wouldn’t ravish the population, only the women (my hypothetical soldiers and pirates are all heterosexual).