• qjkxbmwvz@startrek.websiteEnglish
      453·
      7 months ago

      Yeah I always assumed “bug” was like “vegetable” — it’s a colloquial, not taxonomic, term. But there are “true bugs” so maybe the analogy isn’t completely sound.

      (And tomato is absolutely a vegetable.)

    • Lizardking27@lemmy.worldEnglish
      101·
      7 months ago

      I’m sorry but you’re simply incorrect.

      Bug is a technical term. Only insects of order Hemiptera, categorized by the ability to fly and the presence of piercing, sucking mouth parts, are considered true bugs.

      Lobsters are certainly not considered bugs.

      • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zipEnglish
        171·
        7 months ago

        I’m sorry but you’re simply incorrect. Bug can be a technical term, but that doesn’t also preclude it from also being a non-technical term, because words often have more than one meaning. See also: theory.

      • Squirrel@thelemmy.clubEnglish
        121·
        7 months ago

        Merriam-Webster, definition 1:

        a: any of an order (Hemiptera and especially its suborder Heteroptera) of insects (such as an assassin bug or chinch bug) that have sucking mouthparts, forewings thickened at the base, and incomplete metamorphosis and are often economic pests

        called also true bug

        b: any of various small arthropods (such as a beetle or spider) resembling the true bugs

        c: any of several insects (such as a head louse) commonly considered obnoxious

        • Lizardking27@lemmy.worldEnglish
          212·
          7 months ago

          “a: any of an order (Hemiptera and especially its suborder Heteroptera) of insects (such as an assassin bug or chinch bug) that have sucking mouthparts, forewings thickened at the base, and incomplete metamorphosis and are often economic pests”

          This is the primary and most correct definition of bug.

          Yes, people use it wrong. That doesn’t change the definition of the word.

      • frezik@midwest.socialEnglish
        71·
        7 months ago

        The scientific taxonomic system was made, in part, because traditional colloquial terms are a mess. For example, “daddy longlegs” refers to a type of spider in my area, but there are two other animals and three plants that it could refer to depending on where you grew up. Taxonomists saw that there are ten different standards, decided to make a new one to replace them all, and for once, it actually worked out for the most part.

        “Bug” is one of those old terms. It might have been mapped post hoc on top of the modern taxonomic system, but it didn’t start that way, and isn’t always used that way. I wouldn’t expect an entomologist to use the term at all in formal contexts.

      • RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        7 months ago

        But commonly it’s a catch all for any creepy crawly, including arachnid. The classification is even called True Bug, not just Bug

    • Squirrel@thelemmy.clubEnglish
      61·
      7 months ago

      But they wanted to feel smugly superior! Poor fella can’t even be pedantic properly…

  • chetradley@lemmy.worldEnglish
    43·
    7 months ago

    The number one rule for pedants is: if you’re going to be pedantic, you’d damn well better be correct.

  • mhague@lemmy.worldEnglish
    321·
    7 months ago

    I’m not a scientist, but I’m the kind of person to keep black widows as pets and create a website that catalogues all the spiders in my area. I’d allow spiders being called bugs, or even insects. Even poisonous is alright but it does hurt a little.

    • Endmaker@lemmy.worldEnglish
      17·
      7 months ago

      create a website that catalogues all the spiders in my area

      You are a web developer looking for other web developers ;)

      • mhague@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        7 months ago

        It was a Google site (from years ago) so all that’s left is a random archive somewhere. I had all the local spiders+favorites, but the only original content were pictures of Latrodectus and Kukulkania Hibernalis. Beautiful spiders.

    • Holzkohlen@feddit.deEnglish
      31·
      7 months ago

      Are some spiders poisonous? Are all animals that are venomous also poisonous? Also I’d like to say that there is no linguistic difference between the two in some languages. There is no distinction between the two in German for instance. It’s either giftig or it isn’t.

      • EtherWhack@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        7 months ago

        None that I know of. I think the OC was just mocking a bit on how some people can get so bent out of shape when the word is used colloquially.

        • Username@feddit.deEnglish
          4·
          7 months ago

          Funnily there is also the word “Mitgift” (Dowry) that has nothing to do with poison at all and is closer to the english “gift”.

        • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          7 months ago

          Same root though. In Dutch it wasn’t differentiated until recently so the same word has vastly different meanings between Afrikaans and Dutch. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/gifte#Middle_Low_German

          Original meaning seems to be something that was given. So a snake would gift you Poison just like snot nosed brats would gift you a cold during Thanksgiving dinner.

          Same meaning as dose in that sense. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/dosis#Latin

          • samus12345@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            7 months ago

            The word has been used as a euphemism for “poison” since Old High German, a semantic loan from Late Latin dosis (“dose”), from Ancient Greek δόσις (dósis, “gift; dose of medicine”).

            I wondered how the heck it got that meaning. Pretty strange to apply a term for giving something in general to poison specifically.

      • MrPoopyButthole@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        7 months ago

        There is a distinction to make. For example some snake venom is not poisonous when traveling through your digestive system, and only becomes a problem when it enters the blood stream (usually from a bite).

        • mhague@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          7 months ago

          I don’t think it matters in most contexts. When people are casually talking about it, venomous and poisonous are both stand-ins for “it has venom.” They’re not telling other people, “actually, don’t eat spiders.” I was just joking about the classic pedant line about spiders.

          But it does make a difference on paper. I’m curious how you would express this in German: A black widow is venomous and in theory a healthy human can eat a dead black widow with no ill effects.

            • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.mlEnglish
              4·
              7 months ago

              Thanks, I didn’t realize the server instance I log in with, could do seamless censorship on the fly like that for content it doesn’t even host. Does that mean there is lemmy content I’m just not seeing ? That’s unacceptable.

              • joenforcer@midwest.socialEnglish
                3·
                7 months ago

                Yep. If your instance defederates from certain instances that others don’t defederate from, you won’t see comments from those defederated servers that others might still be able to see and interact with. This is the curse of a decentralized system where every node can make up their own rules.

                • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.mlEnglish
                  3·
                  7 months ago

                  Can I just run my own single user lemmy server instead ? Why do I even need a third party to manipulate my digital world view ? Will I get autobanned from everywhere for being too small ?

  • AVincentInSpace@pawb.socialEnglish
    242·
    7 months ago
    1. there is no scientific definition of “bug”. the entire category is a social construct much like vegetables
    2. this person’s first sentence defined spiderd as insects and the second sentence said they weren’t
  • Etterra@lemmy.worldEnglish
    17·
    7 months ago

    A retort in three parts;

    1. It’s bugs (colloquial), not Bugs (texanomic),

    2. There’s being pedantic and then there’s being a jackass - that’s you, jackass, and

    3. @eat_roadkill should embrace their name and go chow down on a three-day-dead skunk.

    • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.caEnglish
      41·
      7 months ago

      Yeah, I’m pretty sure taxonomy is in latin because actual scientists got tired of dealing with pedantic dipshits.

      “Bug” is an english word so it’s the domain of an etymologist not a biolgist. My lookup of the word indicates applying “bug” to arachnids is perfectly cromulent.

  • azi@mander.xyzEnglish
    10·
    7 months ago

    Anyone know what the first known case of ‘bug’ exclusively referring to Hemipterans/Heteropterans? The first use of bug being applied to arthropods was in the 1620s in reference to bedbugs (in Hemiptera but not Heteroptera) with the term ladybug (not in Hemiptera) first attested in the 1690s. Both predate Linnean taxonomy. So why and when did entomologists decide to coin this highly restrictive definition? It’s a very English-language term so it surely wasn’t when the taxon was created by Linnaeus.