I picked up a fever last weekend.
Is the above sentence used the word 'picked up' correctly?
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Sign up to join this communityI picked up a fever last weekend.
Is the above sentence used the word 'picked up' correctly?
For diseases and sicknesses, one should normally use catch and caught , I personally hadn't seen "pick up" before diseases till in this case.
Pick up can mean "to acquire incidentally or passively", e.g. "I dragged the net through the water and picked up seaweed." As no one really intends to get a disease, this isn't really a wrong use of pick up.
However, diseases are generally caught, not picked up.
Looks like Johnny caught a fever, he'll be staying home from school.