a sick day/sick leave

[Winwin2011]

I'm not felling well. I 'd like to take sick leave today.

1. Is it incorrect to say "take a sick leave"?
2. Can we say "take a sick day"?

 

[SlickVic9000]

(Not a Teacher)

"Leave" is uncountable. "Day" is, however. So to answer your question:

1) Yes, that is incorrect. It has to be "take sick leave", without the article.
2) Yes, you can say that. Conversely, you can't say "take sick day", you must have the article.

 

[emsr2d2]

"I'd like to take a sick day today" or "I'd like to take a day's sick leave today" would be the most natural for me. In fact, I probably wouldn't start with "I'd like to ...". If I was too sick to go to work, I would say "I'm sorry. I can't come in today. I'm sick". My company would be the ones to mark it down as sick leave.

 

[SoothingDave]

To me a "leave" is a longer condition. If you got pneumonia and were going to be off for a month, that would be sick leave. Leave involves separate policies from mere sick days. In my company you have a benefit that pays you your salary (or a portion of that) when you are on sick leave.

If you have a cold and are not coming in for a day or two, you would use your sick days.

 

[Barb_D]

But it will depend on where you work. Some places will have "annual leave" (what most of us call "vacation" or "vacation days") and "sick leave" (even though most of us will say "sick days" if it's for a day or two) that you draw from whenever you are out.

 

[Tdol]

In BrE, you could say that you're taking a day off sick.

 

[Winwin2011]

To me a "leave" is a longer condition. If you got pneumonia and were going to be off for a month, that would be sick leave. Leave involves separate policies from mere sick days. In my company you have a benefit that pays you your salary (or a portion of that) when you are on sick leave.

If you have a cold and are not coming in for a day or two, you would use your sick days.

If we have a cold and are not coming in for a day or two, is it natural to say "I 'd like to take a sick day today" in AmE?

Other than "I can't come in today" and "I'm taking a day off sick", could anybody tell me similar expressions in BrE? Some people in my region would think they are not polite because some bosses were not happy if a staff took day off sick? Would it be polite to say 'Can I take a day off sick'?

 

[Tdol]

They're polite enough in BrE and might sound better than asking for sick leave, which does sound like a longer time off to me. This sounds more like a local cultural issue- bosses may not like you taking days off anywhere, but if you're genuinely ill, what else can you do? If you throw/pull a sickie, you pretend to be ill to take a day off, which is a different matter.

 

[Roman55]

I am not a teacher.

When I worked in London, a long time ago, if someone was off sick we'd say "he's gone Tom".

For those that don't know rhyming slang, it's "Tom and Dick" = sick

 

[Barb_D]

If we have a cold and are not coming in for a day or two, is it natural to say "I 'd like to take a sick day today" in AmE?

There are two issues: The fact that you will not be in, and how you want the time "recorded."

For most of us, the fact that you won't be in is the key point.
I'd send an e-mail saying "Feeling really poorly - going to stay home today" or something like that. The fact that my time will be recorded as "a sick day" or "as sick leave" in the time keeping system is of less importance. We'll figure that part out later. I'm what's called an exempt employee, and I get my full salary whether I work 24 hours in one week or 60 hours in one week. In fact, most of us work from home when we're sick if we're able to, because our work doesn't go away while we're at home.


For others, how you record the time may be more important. They may call and say "Please put me in for a sick day today. I'm feeling terrible." An hourly employee needs to have all their time accounted for (sick, vacation, jury duty, whatever) or they won't get paid for the time not at work.