Quite the opposite, people keep saying ‘everyone knows what you mean by poisonous snake.’
Damn, I think I just lost 5 bucks.
I’d put it the other way around. Words derive their meaning from how they’re used and understood, and there’s really no other way to determine what a word means; it has no objective meaning apart from how it’s used and understood.
If a vast majority of people refer casually to “poisonous snakes” as snakes that inject venom with fangs, and the vast majority of people understand the same meaning from that phrase, then that’s what that phrase means. Full stop.
That’s incidentally why the dictionary gets it right: dictionaries describe how language is used. Scientific publications advocate for specific usages, which is fine, but dictionaries tell how it’s actually used.
Except when it is blatantly incorrect. At that point the language is not evolving to further clarity, it is regressing to muddy up the water. For example, it is becoming common among the ill-educated to call every lizard they see an “iguana”. That is simply incorrect, regardless of how many people pick it up as a habit. That term is used to refer to a specific number of species, that share readily identifiable physical characteristics. THIS is an Iguana, THIS is NOT an iguana, no matter how many idiots are lazy with their language. The usage does not change the physical reality of the situation. If we simply accept that “iguana” now refers to any lizard because that’s how people want to use it now, we have no way to determine what they are actually talking about. Get it? When “Iguana” stands in for “Lizard”, it confuses everyone. The difference between venom and poison may be less striking, but is not any less real. Those who understand it and use it correctly, are just that: Correct. There is no real reason to be proud of using a word incorrectly or ignorantly. I can accept that the distinction is not important to most people, but that does not mean that it is not real.
I basically responded to this about a half hour before you posted it. I’ll just quote myself:
(By the way, I can find sites using them interchangably. Mayo Clinic:
)
Now where the fuck is this “unsupported” characterization coming from? That is blatantly false. Cites have been given. You just ignore them.
The thing is, the bar for you is extremely high, since you told jtgain and Colibri they were wrong to use the word “poisonous”. They only need a single reputable source that that term is acceptable (See post 60) . It doesn’t matter what the preponderance of the usage is. It doesn’t matter that in certain circles, the distinction is important and maintained. What matters is whether, in the English Language, “poisonous” can ever be used in place of “venomous” in common speech. It clearly can, by the cite to Merriam-Webster already given.
To quote yourself back at you, "You. Are. Wrong. Get over it. "
This overlooks that Shakespeare agreed that venomous snakes are poisonous:
Or Anthony & Cleo:
I generally take the prescriptivist position in arguments like this, but common use is too strong and too storied in this circumstance to agree.
You may appeal to authority, but other authorities still use the common sense of “poison.”
This is nearly (though not quite) as obtuse as those who insist that a photograph cannot be flipped horizontally, and that this is an erroneous way of saying that the photo has been “flopped.” When established use is so widespread and accepted, after a certain point it looks a bit quixotic to insist on “correcting” people.
It’s not muddied, by evidence of the fact that every single person who reads “poisonous snake” knows what it means. Pedants wish it were muddied, because it’d support their pedantry, but it’s not muddied.
If this is true, it’s fascinating. What it indicates is probably not what you think, though: it probably indicates that the word “iguana” is slowly adopting a secondary meaning. That’s how language changes.
Correct according to whom? Where is the definition of these words writ into the fabric of the universe?
As I said, “correctness” is a foolish measure when applied to casual language use. The measure is “useful” or “communicative.” If a word communicates the idea that the speaker intended it to communicate, it was a good word to choose. If it doesn’t, it wasn’t.
This is a basic point of language that most pedants and dilettantes simply don’t grasp.
If a distinction should prove necessary, the speakers will create one, much in the way they created iguana many years ago. It’s also quite possible for words to have one strict meaning in specific contexts and a looser generic meaning in colloquial speech. And make no mistake, this board is colloquial.
I’ll join Inner Stickler’s team, and ask Rigamarole to apologize for not giving us our own Poll option.
On a happier note, I recently learned that some species of rove beetle have a toxin 12 times more dangerous (what does that mean?) than cobra venom, and may be associated with the Sixth Plague of Exodus. (That Wikipedia article is careful to use the term “toxin”, thus avoiding the “poison” vs “venom” debate. :rolleyes: )
I have to agree with you, but only because to your average monkey, the result is the same: Sickness and death. Personally, this usage doesn’t really bother me much in the lay sector, as it communicates the point that the animals are dangerous and not to be idly handled. OTHOH, among those who work with such animals, medical professionals, scientists, and people who simply prefer to be precises or verbose, the distinction is important and possibly life saving.
It’s true. I began hearing the term in the early oughts, first solely among local low income African Americans in North Florida and South Georgia, then with increasing frequency from transplants from New York City and New Jersey. Recently, the usage has gained some steam, and I hear it frequently among all cultural demographics down here, though all (usually) share the common thread of usually being fairly ill-educated and low-income. In fact the term was used to describe a Bearded Dragon lizard recently on the show Total Blackout. On screen by the production staff. It was corrected in the re-run.
Unlike the Venomous/Poisonous distinction, I DO correct this usage every time I hear it. Living in south Florida, we often DO have Iguanas in our yards, and it is important to know what someone is talking about. The real ones can be a problem, often requiring trapping and removal; the tiny anoles and other small lizards are harmless to beneficial in nature.
Of course not; I understand that languages change and evolve. However, among people to whom the distinction is relevant, it is important. If we don’t have a word to replace the merged term then we can have a problem when the distinction NEEDS to be made.
Agreed.
Too bad you’ve failed miserably in your idiotic and unnecessary bullshit pedantic crusade.
Everyone on the planet understands what is meant by the term “poisonous snake” in a thread about snakebites. Hijacking the thread with a forced discussion on the matter is unnecessary, and more rude than anyone has been to you thus far.
Except when they are unable to, precisely because they’ve learned a generic catch-all shortcut word. You vastly overestimate the observational capabilities of the average person. I have to ID reptiles almost daily, and most people can’t provide even a good description. Even simple questions like “is it big or small?” are met with blank or useless responses. I shouldn’t have to play 20 questions with someone because they are simply too lazy to learn the name of an animal. The process runs very differently. I don’t expect someone to be able to tell the difference between anole species, but there is a pretty striking difference between a six-foot long emerald green lizard and a six inch gecko on the wall.
If you tell me you have iguanas in your yard and want to get rid of them, I’ll hand you the trapper’s business card, tell you to keep your distance from them and advise you to put out a bowl of greens and veggies to keep them from eating your hibiscus bushes.
If you tell me you have lizards in your yard and want to get rid of them, I’ll have to ask a few more questions to be sure they aren’t one of the large invasive sort, but usually the answer is: “They are native (or naturalized), harmless and eat lots of bugs. Leave them alone please.”
You get blank responses for “Is it big or small?” and you want them to understand the difference between lizard and iguana?
You have no idea. :rolleyes: These are usually the same people that when you SHOW them an iguana they insist its an alligator. I’ve never shown them an alligator because I don’t want to be reported to the police for having a dinosaur.
If somebody is handing me their pet spider and says “just be careful because she’s poisonous” I want to know if they understand the difference between a poisonous spider and a venomous spider.
If it’s a poisonous spider I’ll be careful not to eat their pet - a rule I normally follow anyway. (Unless their pet is a pig or a chicken. Then it’s more of a guideline.) If it’s a venomous spider I’ll decline the opportunity to hold it entirely.
I find it hard to believe that if someone handed you a spider and said, be careful, it’s poisonous, you’d really think they meant not to eat it as opposed to not to aggravate it.
I’ve stated this before but you obviously missed it: just because someone uses the wrong term but you still understand what they meant, doesn’t mean the distinction doesn’t exist or doesn’t matter in general.
Context is everything. In the cases being talked about here, the distinction isn’t crucial as the assumption when talking about snakes and toxins is that it’s a toxin transferred via a bite.
I was going to say the same. Poison and Venom are sometimes lumped together in the same broad category, but they’re really very, very different when scrutinized.
No shit. It matters sometimes, in certain instances. Not all of them. it is perfectly acceptable to use the term “poisonous snake” in casual conversation to denote a snake with a poisonous bite. It isn’t incorrect, it’s common usage.
The word “theory” has a different meaning in casual conversation than it does in a laboratory. That doesn’t mean we run around shouting “hypothesis!” at people and hijacking threads everything the word is used.
In my defense, I did open this thread specifically so as not to hijack the other one. 