"I hope I didn't catch it at work, X was coughing all afternoon."
We say these things so casually, so unthinkingly. We absorb the language of contagion and infection so early in life that it works on us at a level far below mere thought. We take so much for granted about the nature of sickness..
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FIlb1g-X0AI9YPl?format=jpg&name=small
PDF, 1996, 17pp: https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/psychology ... olds96.pdf