Typhoid Mary
PRONUNCIATION:
(TY-foid MAIR-ee) 
MEANING:
noun: A person from whom a disease or something undesirable spreads.
ETYMOLOGY:
After Mary Mallon (1869-1938), a cook in New York, who was a healthy carrier (contagious but showing no symptoms) of typhoid. She died of pneumonia. Read/watch more about her on PBS Nova. Earliest documented use: 1909.
USAGE:
"I walked out of the ward wearing the surgical mask and kept it on for forty-eight hours to avoid becoming Typhoid Mary."
Kenneth Schneyer; Life of the Author Plus Seventy; Analog Science Fiction & Fact (New York); Sep 2013.
"Insomnia is a global pandemic whose Typhoid Mary was Thomas Edison, forcing fake sunlight into hours when ancient biology demands shut-eye."
Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep; The Scientist (Midland, Canada); Sep 2012.
Kenneth Schneyer; Life of the Author Plus Seventy; Analog Science Fiction & Fact (New York); Sep 2013.
"Insomnia is a global pandemic whose Typhoid Mary was Thomas Edison, forcing fake sunlight into hours when ancient biology demands shut-eye."
Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep; The Scientist (Midland, Canada); Sep 2012.
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