Sounds fake, but it’s real

What is the walking corpse syndrome? Discover 10 odd medical conditions

Image: Ani Kolleshi

Not all medical conditions sound as serious as they are, but others… Others have names that seem straight out of science fiction tales. However, rest assured, they are all very real. From conditions that turn you into Sleeping Beauty to disorders that leave you feeling like an alien in your own skin, we’ve gathered 10 medical conditions whose names will leave you scratching your head. Keep reading and find out about these illnesses with weird names!

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Who hasn’t wished they could sleep 20 hours a day? That’s simply a dream come true! But people with Klein-Levin syndrome don’t really think that. The condition is commonly known as Sleeping Beauty Syndrome.

Those affected by this condition experience episodes where they sleep excessively for hours, and even days! When awake, they can be confused, disoriented, and exhibit unusual behaviors like binge eating.

The condition can last for years, though episodes tend to become less frequent over time. It’s unclear what causes the syndrome, and there’s no specific treatment. The name sounds enchanting, but for those living with it, Sleeping Beauty Syndrome is more of a nightmare!

Image: Timo Wagner

This one sounds like something out of a sci-fi horror movie, but it’s a very real condition that affects the brain and spinal cord of cows. It is officially called Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) and the symptoms are aggression or erratic behavior in infected cattle. That is why it’s called "mad".

Now, this list is about human conditions. But here’s the trick: The disease can be transmitted to humans through the consumption of contaminated beef, causing a fatal brain disorder known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

While strict food safety regulations have significantly reduced the risk, the nickname "Mad Cow Disease" sticks because of the startling symptoms it causes. Don’t worry! Despite the scary name, it’s extremely rare to contract in humans today.

Image: Geetanjal Khanna

Imagine your hand moves, but you didn’t send that signal to your brain. Imagine your hand doing things you never intended, creepy right? That’s what happens when you have alien hand syndrome.

People with this rare neurological disorder experience involuntary hand movements that seem purposeful, such as picking up objects or even trying to interfere with tasks the person is consciously performing. It’s called "alien" because the hand feels like it has a mind of its own, separate from the person’s control.

It is usually caused by brain injury or surgery, and it can be quite distressing and disorienting. As you can imagine, there’s no cure, but some types of therapy help reduce the movements.

Image: Tachina Lee

You’re walking on the street and you see someone. You think "I know them! I don’t know where from, but I know them!" Well, that’s not the case for everyone. Prosopagnosia, or more commonly known as facial blindness, is a condition that affects a person’s ability to recognize faces. No, not just random faces: It could be your best friend’s face, for example.

The name comes from the Greek words prósopo for "face" and agnōsia which means "ignorance."

While many of us might be forgetful with names, those with prosopagnosia may not even recognize familiar faces, including their own reflection! This condition can be present from birth or result from brain injury. Although there’s no cure, many people find ways to manage it, such as focusing on other details like voice or clothing. Weird how the brain works, huh!

Image: Alexandre Debiève

No, no human has ever turned into a real werewolf when the full moon comes. But this condition is called that due to some human’s resemblance to the fictional creature.

Hypertrichosis, better known as werewolf syndrome, causes excessive hair growth all over the body. The condition gets its mythical nickname because people with it can develop thick hair on their faces, resembling the werewolves of folklore.

It is an extremely rare condition, and it takes different forms. For some, this overgrowth only happens in small patches of skin whereas others’ conditions affect large areas. No cure has been found to this date, but it’s quite manageable and it’s not dangerous at all!

Image: Paolo Nicolello

Alice in Wonderland syndrome sounds whimsical, but it’s a condition that distorts how a person perceives their body or surroundings.

Naturally, it was named after Lewis Carroll’s famous character, and those with this syndrome may feel as if their body parts are much larger or smaller than they actually are, similar to how Alice’s size changes once she goes down the rabbit hole!

These perceptions can be disorienting, making the world seem like it’s out of proportion or shifting in strange ways. The condition is often associated with migraines or epilepsy. While it’s not dangerous, the sensations can be unsettling and, contrary to others that we’ve mentioned, not very easy to deal with every day.

Image: Ortopediatri Çocuk Ortopedi Akademisi

The official name for the stone man disease is Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva (FOP), which is a rare genetic condition where soft tissues like muscles and tendons gradually turn into bone. As the body forms more bone, it restricts movement, effectively "freezing" a person in place. Inconvenient, to say the least, don’t you think?

The condition progresses over time, and as more joints are affected, simple actions like eating or breathing can become difficult. There’s no cure for this disease, and any trauma to the body, like a fall or surgery, can worsen the condition.

As you can imagine, the name comes from the fact that those affected may eventually feel like their body has turned to stone. It’s a tough, life-altering condition, despite it sounds like a Spiderman’s enemy!

Image: Jeremy Bishop

We get it, some conditions are really serious. Now, who is in charge of naming them? This condition, officially known as Cotard’s Delusion, goes by the name walking corpse syndrome but it’s not because one exactly looks like a zombie.

The neuropsychological disorder makes people believe they are dead, missing organs, or don’t exist. It was first described in the 1880s, it causes those who have it to feel detached from reality, often convinced they have no functioning body parts or that they’re a "walking corpse."

It sounds terrifying, not only for the person experiencing it but for those around them.

What’s the origin? It is linked to severe depression or brain trauma. Though the name sounds straight out of a horror movie, Cotard’s Delusion is a serious and distressing mental health condition.

Image: Vasilis Caravitis

This one also belongs to the field of mental health conditions and it is the most common for most young adults today. Ever feel like you’re not good enough, even when all the evidence says otherwise? That’s imposter syndrome, a psychological phenomenon where people doubt their accomplishments and fear being exposed as frauds for no reason whatsoever!

Though it is not a formal medical diagnosis, the term was coined by psychologists in 1978 and has gained recognition for describing a feeling many high achievers experience. Despite outward success, those with imposter syndrome struggle with feelings of inadequacy. Can you relate to this one?

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To finish this article on a higher note, let’s talk about foreign accent syndrome. Can you imagine what is it? No, it’s not the ability to adapt to different accents.

Imagine going to bed and waking up with a completely different accent than the one you always had! That’s what the syndrome is.

It usually occurs after a stroke or brain injury and results in someone suddenly speaking with an accent they’ve never had before. While the person’s native language remains the same, their speech patterns may shift, making it sound as if they’re from a different area or a different country altogether.

No matter how much of a language lover you are, imagine the chaos of having to communicate in a new language out of the blue!

Tasty idioms

Why is a baker’s dozen 13? These 10 food idioms spiced up our language

Image: Mae Mu

Food idioms have a way of adding flavor to our speech. From "crying over spilled milk" to being accused of "being a couch potato," we have internalized these phrases and no longer notice their edible main characters. What are the origins of these funny lines? Did their meanings evolve over the centuries? Grab a snack and read on to learn the history of food-related idioms that have seasoned our language since as early as 77 A.D.

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You can go ahead and imagine someone trying to staple or nail jelly to the bark. This line applies to tasks that are either challenging or impossible. One of its earliest uses is believed to have been by President Theodore Roosevelt. Legend has it that, over inconclusive talks about the building of the Panama Canal, he said: "Negotiating with those pirates is like trying to nail currant jelly to the wall."

Similar hyperbolic idioms suggest that someone attempting the impossible is trying to "catch the wind" or "herding cats." Also, it may refer to projects that are as difficult as they are useless, just like nailing jelly to a tree.

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Of the list, this is the most modern idiom. It gained popularity in the 2010s via jokes on the internet and social media culture. In a world where tea equals gossip, "spilling the tea", "bringing the tea", or "serving the tea" means to provide juicy, exclusive details about a story. It derives from the shorthand for "Truth": a capital "T". While it’s too soon for the expression to be in every dictionary, the slang is widespread enough to be understood in several countries.

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This saying is recent enough to have a known author. In the 1970s, a man called Tom Iacino improvised this term in a phone call to refer to his lazy friend. From then on, Tom and his close ones adopted the words to laugh about their sedentary habits. The expression soon became used in cartoons and TV shows, and eventually caught on. In an interview many years later, Tom said he couldn’t explain why he had come up with that silly image back then.

Image: Noemí Jiménez

Here’s another idiom that stuck because of the humor in the image it paints. Have you ever stopped to picture someone on the floor, crying over spilled milk? Melodramatic, right? The reason the phrase caught on since early mentions in 17th-century English literature is the mockery implied in it. When someone is told not to cry over spilled milk, they are being consoled by the fact that their mishap is rather irrelevant. It also points out that, however minor, their mistake can’t be undone, like putting the milk back in the jar.

Image: Ray Shrewsberry

To be or not to be in a pickle! It was William Shakespeare himself who first penned this idiom in his play The Tempest. He intended it with a different meaning than simply being in trouble, though. In the play, a shipwreck strands two characters on an island with nothing but a barrel of wine. It is their king who finds them later and asks Trinculo, one of them: "How came’st thou in this pickle?," because, by that point, Trinculo is drunk.

Fifty years after Shakespeare’s play, another writer, Samuel Pepys, used the phrase to describe a messy, bothersome, problematic situation. This is the version that stuck through the centuries.

Image: Mae Mu

A baker’s dozen equals 13. Here’s the logic behind that. In medieval England, bakers were subject to strict regulations and often received fines or floggings for shortchanging customers. When you are baking 300 loaves a day in a medieval oven, it is possible that some of them might come out undersized. To avoid conflicts in weighing and counting, bakers adopted the habit of including one or even two extra items in each dozen they sold. This practice was so widespread that by the 16th century, the expression "baker’s dozen" had become a standard term to mean 13.

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The suggestion to "take it with a grain of salt" has ancient origins. It is believed to come from a natural medicine bible written around 77 AD, Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia. In it, Pliny recounted a story about the Roman general Pompey, who discovered an antidote for poison that included a grain of salt. This antidote was thought to make one immune to poison if taken regularly. In Classical Latin, Pliny’s words were addito salis grano ("after having added a grain of salt").

Over time, the concept became a metaphor for skepticism. With it, people are advised not to believe everything they hear. Just as a grain of salt could mitigate naïveté.

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We can all agree that pre-sliced bread is a major convenience. Back in the 1920s, when the first automatic bread slicer was invented, sliced bread started being sold under the brand name "Wonder Bread". Their ads read: "The greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped." After that, popularly, people started to admire new, helpful, or groundbreaking inventions as "the greatest thing since sliced bread".

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To "confess the corn", to "own the corn", or even to "acknowledge the malt" all refer to the act of admitting to at least part of the guilt of some crime. According to Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrases and Fable, this one originated in a Congressional debate of 1828. The fable goes that one of the states had previously claimed to be a corn exporter. Representatives then admitted that they exported hogs who had eaten corn, which was exported in that way.

A funnier version sustains that it was first said in a court case in the 19th century, in which a man was accused of stealing horses and a large supply of corn. It is said that aiming to be dismissed from the charge and the terrible penalty for horse thieves, he stood and declared: "I acknowledge the corn."

Image: American Heritage Chocolate

What’s the point of having a cake and not being able to eat it? The explanation behind this idiom is that, once you have a cake, you can either store it or eat it (and cease to have it). So, the phrase describes the situation of wanting two mutually exclusive things.

The first historical record of this line appears in print in John Heywood's Proverbs (1546). Back then, cake was considered a luxury item. However, the idiom is timeless because it describes internal conflicts that we all have at some point. Should I watch another episode or get some sleep? Have the cake, or eat it?