Grim Grotto Spoilers!

[Antenora]

From BarnesAndNoble.com. My comments are in italics:
The Grim Grotto Book the Eleventh (A Series of Unfortunate Events)


From the Publisher
Lemony Snicket's upsetting serial about the perfectly likeable but hopelessly doomed Baudelaire orphans continues to depress readers everywhere.
In this eleventh installment in A Series of Unfortunate Events, the ill-fated siblings are adrift in a sea of awfulness(Literal or metaphorical? Both!) that includes a submarine(We already knew that), a determined villain with a stylish girlfriend(Self-explanatory), mushrooms(See last picture in TSS. I'll bet they're poisonous and that they grow in the grotto), an alarming message from a lost friend(Any of the Quagmires, or Hector, or a thought-to-be-dead person), and hypochondria(What could this have to do with it?). This dark, damp, distressing chronicle is likely the worst yet in what has become a deeply disturbing worldwide phenomenon.

[kjlsnicket29]

Omg, that's awesome, just to ask, does anyone know what hypochondria is? I don't remember, I think it has to do with freezing cold water, like, if u get too cold or sumthing. I don't remember too good

[onerousolaf]

I believe you are thinking of hypothermia. ;D

According to dictionary.com, hypochondria is the persistent conviction that one is or is likely to become ill, often involving symptoms when illness is neither present nor likely, and persisting despite reassurance and medical evidence to the contrary.

Anyway, despite the fact that it mostly repeated what we already knew, we did learn a few new things. (The message from the long lost friend and the hypochondria part) Wtg Tocuna!

[kjlsnicket29]

onerousolaf said:

I believe you are thinking of hypothermia. ;D

Yeah, THAT'S what it was, thanks for clearing that up for me.

[kjlsnicket29]

Anyways, this is good information, Tocuna, especially about hypochondria and long lost friend ;D

[Luigi]

Captiosus: *tail twitches* At last! I can't wait to see the message, and who the friend is!

[Sora]

Oh thank you! This rules I can not wait to see the blurb for the book. I wonder who gets hypothermia? Guess we will have to wait and see.

[Antenora]

It's hypochondria, although hypothermia is possible if the water is cold. I'm trying to figure out how those all connect, and I think that perhaps someone will eat a mushroom that's not actually poisonous and think that they've been poisoned. Or maybe they think they have hypothermia.

[kjlsnicket29]

Well, the way I heard what hypochondria was, my mom told me it was when you always think you have a problem, like, u think u always have sumthing wrong with you, or something. A girl at my school has it

[Tullae]

Hypochondria. How interesting. I wonder if this may be connected with the mushrooms? A hypochondriac inadvertently eats one of the mushrooms and just as inadvertently finds out about it shortly after. Being a hypochondriac, this person’s distress at discovering they have just consumed a mushroom of dubious nutritional value will be completely ignored by all of his or her fellows as it will be regarded as just another in a long line of hypochondriac fits.

His or her fellows will be duly shocked when the hypochondriac suddenly and completely unexpectedly drops dead from a terrible case of poisoning, after a long and elaborate act of pretending to be dying from poisoning, complete with seizures and foaming at the mouth, which is only to be expected from a hypochondriac who has claimed they have eaten a poisoned mushroom.

Just because you’re a hypochondriac doesn’t mean you’re not dying.

[Tullae]

It has just occurred to me that hypochondria just happens to be polysemous, a word which means a word with more than one meaning.

Perhaps the information reported by The Publisher regarding hypochondria has nothing to do with the condition suffered by a hypochondriac, but has more to do with Mr. Snicket having discovered the presence of more than one hypochondrium, or many hypochondria during the course of his investigations in the Grim Grotto.

Hypochondrium, a word which refers to the upper lateral region of the abdomen, marked by the lower ribs (the bit just below the chest), may well have been present if Count Olaf and his theatre troop had disguised themselves as beach-goers, or old-fashioned sea-men, many of whom go about with their upper abdomens exposed.

[Celinra]

Here are definitions from Websters.com for the word 'hypochondria' (using just that, not other words with the same root):

The persistent conviction that one is or is likely to become ill, often involving symptoms when illness is neither present nor likely, and persisting despite reassurance and medical evidence to the contrary. Also called hypochondriasis; chronic and abnormal anxiety about imaginary symptoms and ailments

(pl) The upper lateral region of the abdomen, marked by the lower ribs.

n. [NL.] (Med.) Hypochondriasis; melancholy; the blues (which is also the definition given in the online medical dictionary at cancerweb.ncl.ac.uk/cgi-bin/omd?query=hypochondria&action=Search+OMD)

[FrodoSnicket]

you know what you have a point, but hypochondria isn't really being afraid of stuff. It is a state of mind. Thinking your sick and therefore sort of feeling your sick. Watch the movie Bandits and you'll know. It does make sense to have aunt Josephine though cuz they never specifically said she died.

[kjlsnicket29]

Wow, yup, that does kinda remind you of Aunt Josephine, only maybe the long lost friend part will be the Quags.

[kjlsnicket29]

FrodoSnicket said:

you know what you have a point, but hypochondria isn't really being afraid of stuff. It is a state of mind. Thinking your sick and therefore sort of feeling your sick. Watch the movie Bandits and you'll know. It does make sense to have aunt Josephine though cuz they never specifically said she died.

I agree! Well, that's kinda what I thought it was, too. ;D