on the sick
adj.— «The growing number of people allegedly unable to work due to illness is strange, because the health of the population has continued to improve. But in truth, no one now expects what are known as sick certificates to indicate actual illnesses: when I ask my patients why they are “on the sick,” as they call it, the only explanation they can give is that they receive a sick certificate. And when asked why they receive a sick certificate, they reply, “Because I’m on the sick.”» —“Britain’s Sham Unemployment Drop” by Theodore Dalrymple City Journal Jan. 28, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
We use the term Milky Way for that glowing arc across the sky. But how people picture it varies from culture to culture. In Sweden, that starry band goes by a name that means “Winter Street,” and in Hawaii, a term for the Milky Way...