Taking the pulse of the vocabulary The powerful may lurch from weakness to rude health, but there is little that can be done for the sick man of Europe.

Sick company ... only presidents, popes and kings are said to be ailing. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

In Poland they say sto lat (100 years), in China it's ganbei (drink it up). In Britain, we'll as often as not say good health when we raise a glass. There's no doubt that a long life and good health matter to us as individuals. Looking at the Guardian Weekly archive, it also seems that the health of a lot of other things is pretty important.

When it comes to people, most of us want to be strong, fit, resilient andvigorous, and we don't want to lose our health and become ill and weak, and eventually to be seen as ailing or in decline. The same seems to apply when we speak of nations and economies, armies or currencies. I've reviewed a list of health-related words that range from strong (6,093 instances), strength (2,295) and weak (1,713) down to unwell (50) andweakly (38), and have found some telling combinations.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/mind-your-language/2011/jun/07/tefl