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People will add -itis to just about any word to imply somebody is exhibiting symptoms of illness, for humor or to disparage. I've seen Seinfeld-itis for guys so obsessed with that TV show they can't watch enough of it. Jargon-itis would belong to the disparaging category, a mental illness associated with excessive uses of jargons.
-mania likewise means extreme passion or obsession, but not interchangeable with -itis because it's often not humorous, and not so disparaging, and not so much about sickness: beatle-mania, egomania.
-itis in its literal sense refers to a condition involving inflammation, while the similar -osis simply describes a condition that is in some way abnormal.
The old med-school joke is that when your doctor tells you that your rash is dermatitis, he's really just saying you have "inflammation of the skin" and gives no information about what's actually causing it.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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