the.com/halitosis

The medical word for bad breath, invented so doctors could bill you in Latin.

means Bad breath — chronically unpleasant-smelling breath, usually from bacteria in the mouth, gum disease, or something you ate.

from Built from Latin halitus, 'breath' or 'exhalation' (from halare, 'to breathe'), plus the medical suffix -osis, meaning 'a condition of.' The word itself is a 20th-century marketing creation — coined (or at least popularized) in the 1920s by Listerine's advertising copywriters, who took a vague, embarrassing everyday problem and dressed it up in clinical Latin to make it sound like a diagnosable disease you urgently needed their mouthwash to cure.

origin
from halitus, Latin for breath
usual cause
bacteria eating leftover food on your tongue
coined by
a 1920s Listerine ad campaign, not a doctor
mints don't fix it
they just mask it for minutes
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