"I would rather he not be taking something that has not been approved by the scientists, especially in his age group and his — shall we say weight group — what is 'morbidly obese'...."

Nancy Pelosi — second in line for the presidency if Trump dies — expresses concern for our President, after he says he's taking hydroxychloroquine. Transcript.

Trump would need to weigh over 300 pounds to be morbidly obese (even assuming he's shrunken with age from his peak height of 6'3"), so Nancy is either taunting him or badly misinformed. Isn't it enough to call someone obese? There's some question whether Trump is even over the line to obese, so stretching it to morbidly obese is mean, and I think a person with such a high stake in Trump's death should not look eager to refer to his dying.

But is "morbid" really a reference to death? That's how I've heard it, connecting it to the French "mort" (death) and "mortality." But what explains the "b" in the place of the "t"? Maybe I have this wrong.

"Mortal" traces back to the Latin mortālis, which means "subject to death, human, transient" and — post-classical — "causing death" or "relating to death." (I'm quoting the OED).

But "morbid" goes back to the Latin morbidus, which means "diseased, sick, causing disease, unhealthy." Strangely, there's an Italian word "morbido" which refers to the "refinement of colours, or harmony of proportions" and, earlier, meant "having a soft, yielding, or doughy consistency" and also was used for the "body or face of a woman or child" to mean "beautiful, delicate."

When we call someone "morbid," though, we mean that their thoughts are grounded in death, don't we?

The OED defines "morbid," when used to describe a person's mental state, as "characterized by excessive gloom or apprehension, or (in later use) by an unhealthy preoccupation with disease, death, or other disturbing subject; given to unwholesome brooding."

But obesity is not a person with a mental state, so the applicable definition of "morbid" is "Causing disease; characteristic of, indicative of, or produced by disease; of the nature of disease; of or relating to disease." So "morbid" in "morbidly obese" is about the causation of disease, not death.

Anyway, is Trump really taking hydroxycholorquine? Or is this more of his sarcasm that nobody understands? From the transcript:

I’m taking it, hydroxychloroquine. Right now. Yeah. Couple of weeks ago I started taking it. Because I think it’s good. I’ve heard a lot of good stories. And if it’s not good, I’ll tell you right. I’m not going to get hurt by it. It’s been around for 40 years for malaria, for lupus, for other things. I’d take it. Frontline workers take it. A lot of doctors take it. Excuse me. A lot of doctors take it. I take it....

Did the White House doctor recommend that you take that? Is that why you’re taking it?

Yeah, White House doctor. He didn’t recommend it. No, I asked him, “What do you think?” He said, “Well, if you’d like it.” I said, “Yeah, I’d like it. I’d like to take it.”...

Much more at the link, and much more discussion of it in the media. I'm only quoting one commentator, Nancy Pelosi, because I thought it was rich that she called him "morbidly obese." But I like to talk about Trump rhetoric too, and I need to throw it out there that he's just lying. He's counterpunching against all those people who've criticized him for talking up hydroxychloroquine in the past, and he's forcing everyone to talk about hydroxychloroquine and not whatever else would have been the subject of the day. He's injecting optimism into the discussion. Everyone loves to think there is a pill that can save us from the big disease, and he's saying something that people want to believe and backing it up with his own (purported) behavior. Commentators who want to oppose him are forced to sound pessimistic: No, there is no pill... it's foolish to hope there's a pill. People are hungry for hope, hungry for pills. Eat those pills! The President does. If he does. I don't know that he does, but he does want to say he does, and I can see why.