The first definition of “venomous” in the Merriam-Webster Medical dictionary is “poisonous”. Similarly for their main dictionary. That’s a legitimate cite, from a well-known publisher, not just “anyone”. Does your prescriptivist dillhole attitude also extend to prescribing which dictionaries are acceptable for everyone else as well?
Tell you what, I’ll believe “poisonous” can’t also include “venomous” when you get the editors of that dictionary to remove those definitions,.
This is sort of a com positional fallacy, though - you didn’t get poisoned because you didn’t eat the poisonous bit. If you’d eaten the head or the area just back of it, you’d have had a bad time.
That’s a bit like saying that fugu isn’t a poisonous fish, because lots of people it eat it. It’s still poisonous, we just have the good sense not to eat the poisonous bits.
Rattlesnakes are venomous and (naturally) poisonous. Fugu are poisonous, but (naturally) not venomous.
I’m a zoo educator, and I make the distinction between poisonous and venomous every time I teach about snakes. I don’t make a big deal about it, but if some kid asks me “Is it poisonous?” my answer is usually along the lines of, “Do you mean venomous? No, ball pythons aren’t venomous, and I would never bring any dangerous animal to your school.” It’s part of my job to introduce kids to zoological vocabulary, why wouldn’t I use the most correct term?
Yeah, despite running a poll of 100 random people on the internet, until someone can give a good argument showing that one of the most established and respected dictionaries in the English speaking world is wrong in its definition of poisonous I’m not sure why we should even accept this bullshit argument about common usage.
Dictionaries are documentary evidence of common usage, and of a massively more powerful sort than a few random people on a message board.
You people who keep talking about being able to eat a rattlesnake as proof that rattlesnakes are not poisonous are also being ridiculous. As Larry Mudd points out, if you ate the poison glands it probably wouldn’t be ideal. There’s a reason you typically cut about four inches from the base of the snake’s skull when removing the head to cook the rest of the body.
Eating a whole rattlesnake like a opossum does would be bad for humans, opossums can do it because they have a natural immunity/tolerance for the venom. So in fact unless you’re being highly specific it isn’t correct to say “a rattlesnake isn’t poisonous because I can eat one with no ill effect.” Their poison glands definitely contain poison, and eating them would allow their poison to be absorbed into your bloodstream.
This is entirely reasonable, IMO. Many (most? all?) fields have their own jargon, and use words with much more specificity than they are used in common speaking. But this doesn’t make the common usage wrong for everyone else. We aren’t all experts in every field.
Actually after looking into it this isn’t true. Apparently snake venom can’t be absorbed in most normal situations through ingesting it.
… And thus, at that point it would fit the definition of poison: toxic substance that’s ingested or inhaled. As I’ve maintained all along, the delivery method defines what it should be called and not the inherent toxicity. QED.
ETA: Just saw your post where you corrected yourself - so it’s not poisonous then, but if the above quote were true, it would be (but only when you eat it). It’s completely possible for an animal to be both poisonous and venomous, and still have the terms mean different things. Think about it.
Here’s the only definition of poison I care about:
a : a substance that through its chemical action usually kills, injures, or impairs an organism
If you don’t believe snake venom fits that definition regardless of how it is delivered, then I don’t know that there is much hope for you.
Come back when have proof Merriam-Webster is wrong on the definition of the word.
It’ll probably be difficult since dictionaries are sort of the “proof” for word definitions, though.
I’m curious, how do you refer to poison darts under this schema?
To clarify further, here are the possible combinations:
It forcibly injects the (toxic substance) into its prey, but if you eat the (toxic substance), it causes no ill effect - such as with a rattlesnake, by your own admission. Venomous, but not poisonous.
It forcibly injects the (toxic substance) into its prey, and if you eat the (toxic substance), it also causes a toxic reaction. Venomous and poisonous (still with each word meaning something different).
It does not inject the (toxic substance), but if you eat it, you will experience a toxic reaction. Poisonous, but not venomous.
Here’s another cite from the Department of Wildlife Ecology & Conservation @ University of Florida:
Here’s another cite from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences @ University of Arizona:
Here’s another cite from Understanding Evolution @ UC Berkeley (created by the University of California Museum of Paleontology):
Here’s another cite from the Arizona Game & Fish Department of Wildlife:
Here’s another cite from the National Park Service, an institution of the federal government:
You. Are. Wrong. Get over it.
The word poison comes from the same root that we get the words ‘potion’ and ‘potable’ - it means something toxic that you eat or drink. Venom on the other hand comes from the same root that we get the words ‘wound’ and ‘wen’ - something toxic introduced via an injury (in this case injected).
That was all quite a few years ago though, and language evolves. One could be ‘poisoned’ through the skin, by breathing something in the air, as noted upthread by a ‘poison dart’, etc. and those uses of poison are perfectly correct today. It would be technically correct, although not common, to call arsenic a ‘venomous’ substance. And it is technically correct to call rattlesnakes ‘poisonous’ in modern English in most contexts.
The difference is still important in certain contexts - “Hey Tex, is is OK to fry up that rattlesnake and eat it, or is it poisonous?” “Nah he’s venomous, but not poisonous.” But in the context of the thread that spawned this debate there is no practical difference between the words and they can be used interchangeably.
@Rigamarole: I’m behind you all the way on your crusade, but trying to get some people to use the terms correctly is like trying to get many folks to understand the difference between “to lay” and “to lie”.* Best of luck.
*This board needs a “banging-one’s-head-against-a-wall” emoticon.
You argue with two of our boards greatest Biologists about a question in their specialization? :eek:
They are scientists, you are not. Perhaps linguistically you have a point, but scientifically you are wrong.
This is like a High school English teacher correcting Einstein about “nuclear”.
It’s true that the words have a slightly different meaning, but scientifically speaking the difference is not significant.
I don’t really expect to get everyone using it correctly, but Blake, Martin Hyde, and Colibri have been rather rude in the way they’ve presented their (unsupported, contrarian) opinions and I mainly just wanted to show them how very wrong they are.
Sure, in the context of that thread it was clear that he meant to say venomous where he said poisonous, but used the wrong term unwittingly. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter in other contexts, as you point out, so why not at least mention it?
Tell me something - do you think most people who would casually ask questions about poisonous/venomous animals are using the terms in a narrow and strictly scientific context, or are they using them in a broader linguistic context?
For the record I have no problem with you mentioning it. I was just expounding on the valid points of both sides of the debate.
By the way, I also found a cite from a peer-reviewed, scientific journal.
(quote is from the Google Scholar description and cuts off there because you have to pay for the full article but feel free to purchase it if you want, it costs $31.50 :p)
Ref. : Dr Geoffrey K Isbister, MD, Matthew C Kiernan, FRACP. The Lancet Neurology. Neurotoxic marine poisoning. Volume 4, Issue 4, April 2005, Pages 219–228.
It isn’t actually a scientific question. It is a linguistic question. I don’t think they were answering as ‘scientists’ but rather as users of the English language. In fact, the more “scientific” you want to be about it, the more important the distinction in the meaning becomes. Conversationally in a casual thread about snakebite danger there is really no difference. In a study to determine the toxicity of snake venom when injected versus eaten, it is extremely important to have a means of differentiating between the two.
I think, if we were going to get properly persnickety, we’d class those as “envenomed” also. Unless you can find some way to trick the anaconda into eating the dart…
FWIW, Shakespeare knew the difference. Queen Gertrude was poisoned, but the sword that slew Hamlet was “envenom’d.”