Lice Metaphors Crowd English

At one time or the other, most of us Indian baby boomers were cursed with head lice – those dreadful parasitical creatures that happily squat on your head believing it to be their much desired 2BHK-home.

Head lice infestation happens through close contact with friends, siblings and other family members. Unhygienic and crowded living conditions compound the head lice problem in India. When we were young, elders would often warn us that head lice could leap over seven beds laid side-by-side.

If head lice was the only itch we Indians have to endure, life would be simple.

Thanks to the Cambridge Dictionary, I recently discovered gate lice and aisle lice. While not as invasive and definitely not as itchy as head lice, gate lice and aisle lice are no less bothersome.

The Cambridge Dictionary describes gate lice as “an informal way of referring to people who crowd around the boarding gate at an airport and try to board the plane before their assigned row or section has been called.”

Aisle lice, according to the dictionary, “are people who jump out of their seats as soon as the captain has switched off the seatbelt sign, grab their bags and then stand blocking the aisle so that they can be first off the plane.”

To be clear, aisle lice and gate lice are not restricted to India and are global in nature.

Export of lice from our heads to airports and interiors of planes leads me to suspect there was much more to lice than I had prima facie uncovered.

Upon scratching my itch into this itchy subject, I found, to my dismay, that we are inundated by all kinds of lice these days.

Buffet-table lice (people who stand next to a popular dish instead of taking some and moving on), queue lice, escalator lice, elevator lice, sidewalk lice, pubic lice, train-door lice, doorway lice, mall lice, phone lice, parking-lot lice, concert lice, beach lice and body lice are only some of the lice varieties we now have to contend with.

Not all kinds of lice have made it to the OED: only head lice, body lice and pubic lice are in the OED. The other lice terms still remain in the realm of slang but I guess it won’t be long before we see gate lice and aisle lice enter the hallowed precincts of the OED.