# It's meat. Get over it. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 21, 2013, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-meat-get-over-it/664144 "2013-07-21T23:40:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![R3d\_Anonymous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/aeb1de/32.png) [@R3d\_Anonymous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/R3d_Anonymous)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2013, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-meat-get-over-it/664144/81 "2013-07-24T02:18:39Z")
I understand the word “vegetarian” can have different meanings, but does not the actual true and standard one mean you can’t have fish. Think about it. The definition of “vegetarian” is a person who doesn’t consume meat. The definition of “meat” is the flesh of an animal as food. Fish has flesh. Therefore, fish is meat, and fish cannot be a part of a vegetarian’s diet. My cite is definitions provided by Google Now. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2013, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-meat-get-over-it/664144/82 "2013-07-24T02:30:55Z")
> [@Anonymous User](#): > > I understand the word “vegetarian” can have different meanings, but does not the actual true and standard one mean you can’t have fish. > > Think about it. The definition of “vegetarian” is a person who doesn’t consume meat. The definition of “meat” is the flesh of an animal as food. Fish has flesh. Therefore, fish is meat, and fish cannot be a part of a vegetarian’s diet. > > My cite is definitions provided by Google Now. Thanks for that. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2013, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-meat-get-over-it/664144/83 "2013-07-24T04:07:58Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > You obviously failed to notice that “minced meat pie” has no animal products within it, at all, (with the possible exception of some rendered fat). Depends on the recipe. Piper Mince Meat made annually on Stir-Up Sunday definitely contains meat - red, juicy hamburger, cooked up with the fruits. ---
**Author:** ![SeaDragonTattoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2013, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-meat-get-over-it/664144/84 "2013-07-24T05:47:16Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Arguments against factory farming and animal cruelty? Sure, I’ll buy it. Arguments completely divorced from nature? Wake up. Exactly. Once I started educating myself and researching to come to my own decisions on how to treat animals as food, I changed my mind completely about hunting and am now OK with it. Factory farming (even of fish), not OK. ---
**Author:** ![Tacit\_Knowledge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@Tacit\_Knowledge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tacit_Knowledge)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2013, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-meat-get-over-it/664144/85 "2013-07-24T17:41:59Z")
> [@Anonymous User](#): > > I understand the word “vegetarian” can have different meanings, but does not the actual true and standard one mean you can’t have fish. > > Think about it. The definition of “vegetarian” is a person who doesn’t consume meat. The definition of “meat” is the flesh of an animal as food. Fish has flesh. Therefore, fish is meat, and fish cannot be a part of a vegetarian’s diet. > > My cite is definitions provided by Google Now. Thank you. That’s exactly the point. Now if we can only tell the Catholics that in a way they’ll understand (or at least admit to). ---
**Author:** ![straight\_man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/straight_man/32/3027_2.png) [@straight\_man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/straight_man)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2013, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-meat-get-over-it/664144/86 "2013-07-24T23:19:16Z")
> [@Anonymous User](#): > > I understand the word “vegetarian” can have different meanings, but does not the actual true and standard one mean you can’t have fish. > > Think about it. The definition of “vegetarian” is a person who doesn’t consume meat. The definition of “meat” is the flesh of an animal as food. Fish has flesh. Therefore, fish is meat, and fish cannot be a part of a vegetarian’s diet. > > My cite is definitions provided by Google Now. Well, no, because there is no “actual true and standard” meaning. Language does not itself contain any essences. There is no law of the universe saying that the letters “m”, “e”, “a”, and “t”, placed on the page in that order, mean one thing rather than another. Hence, it is of no particular significance whether Catholics describe their Friday meals as “not eating meat”, since everyone knows that “meat” in that context includes beef but not fish. Make sense? ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2013, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-meat-get-over-it/664144/87 "2013-07-24T23:35:08Z")
> [@Anonymous User](#): > > I understand the word “vegetarian” can have different meanings, but does not the actual true and standard one mean you can’t have fish. I agree that “vegetarian” by default means no animal flesh, including fish. Not that I like bringing up the dictionary definitions, but look at the definition for “vegetarian” [here](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/vegetarian?s=t). > [@](#): > > a person who does not eat or does not believe in eating meat, fish, fowl, or, in some cases, any food derived from animals, as eggs or cheese, but subsists on vegetables, fruits, nuts, grain, etc. Or let’s check the UK [Chambers Dictionary](http://www.chambers.co.uk/search.php?query=vegetarian&title=21st): > [@](#): > > vegetarian noun someone who does not eat meat or fish. This implies that in the vernacular, meat and fish are distinct as two separate categories. I really don’t know what the fuck all this has to do with Catholics, as I would say most English speakers make this distinction. ---
**Author:** ![Tacit\_Knowledge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@Tacit\_Knowledge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tacit_Knowledge)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2013, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-meat-get-over-it/664144/88 "2013-07-25T02:40:08Z")
Most (many) English speakers may indeed make that “distinction”. But it takes special ones to actively argue that fish is NOT meat. I’ve had two occasions that I recall (one recently) - probably more - where it’s come up that someone I’ve known (Catholic) talked about eating fish on a Friday. Then, when I pointed out that, in fact, they are still eating meat - only a more limited family of meat - they completely denied and wouldn’t accept that, in the purest sense, it’s still meat. What their religion is really saying isn’t that fish is not meat. Only that you can’t eat any meat on Fri. EXCEPT for fish. Why? Who knows. Apparently god cares about that sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![SeaDragonTattoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2013, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-meat-get-over-it/664144/89 "2013-07-25T03:05:07Z")
Oh, and back to the OP and others who are befuzzled by the Catholic differentiation between meat and fish. It was explained to me thusly, in my lapsed Catholic memory back to the 80’s - Something about the most recent Pope’s decree (sometime in the 1900’s) being to abstain from _carnis_ during the times calling for abstinence. The Latin _carnis_ refers specifically to land animals, while the English _meat_ refers to all flesh. So obedience to the Church goes back to the literal translation from the Latin, which does differentiate between animals from land or water. I’m not saying it truly makes sense. It might even be one of the many parts of why I dropped the whole of all churches from my life. Anyway, didn’t Catholics make up a large part of the population at some point? I wonder if the differentiation in common language stemmed from that, because people had to start including _and fish_ when mentioning meat, so the religious crowd would fully understand, and it just became pervasive in order to prevent misunderstanding. Which, in turn, is starting to create misunderstanding in and of itself, to have to phrase _meat and fish_ together. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2013, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-meat-get-over-it/664144/90 "2013-07-25T03:34:12Z")
> [@Tacit\_Knowledge](#): > > What their religion is really saying isn’t that fish is not meat. Only that you can’t eat any meat on Fri. EXCEPT for fish. Well, it’s more than just except fish. The prohibition is against mammals and birds. Therefore, you can have turtle, frog legs, bugs, etc., on Lenten Fridays (but I’d wager most Catholics don’t know that.) And, yes, AFAIK, it comes from the fact that the prohibition is against _carnis_, which corresponds to a sense of the word “meat” in English, but not the general sense meaning “flesh of any living creature.” Also, you might find it interesting to note that animal fat (used as a condiment or for cooking) is even okay during Lent. Don’t ask me…I didn’t make the rules. ---
**Author:** ![Doughbag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Doughbag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doughbag)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2013, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-meat-get-over-it/664144/91 "2013-07-25T15:35:10Z")
> [@Tacit\_Knowledge](#): > > Apparently god cares about that sort of thing. He sure does!!! ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2013, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-meat-get-over-it/664144/92 "2013-07-25T15:58:44Z")
Hey, once again, if you eat fish infected with [Heterosporis](http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/fish_diseases/heterosporis.html), it’s technically no longer meat. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2013, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-meat-get-over-it/664144/93 "2013-07-25T16:34:07Z")
I’ve been reading this thread trying to get a handle on the OPs point, and it’s dumb as hell. So, the OPs beef is that we don’t refer to all animal flesh as “meat”? Really? That’s fucking it? Get the fuck over yourself. American English is one of the few languages where it might be an issue. Guess what? We have a perfectly good word for animal flesh. It’s flesh. Like a bazillion posts have just pointed out, meat usually refers to the flesh of only certain animals. Just like “Americans” is understood to mean people from the US, no matter how much mouth-breathing pedants want to claim it can mean people from virtually anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. If you want a general word, use the word flesh, you dolt! No chance of being misunderstood then. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2013, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-meat-get-over-it/664144/94 "2013-07-25T17:41:20Z")
OP: “Dang. My best gotcha, wasted!”. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Uther\_Penguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Uther\_Penguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uther_Penguin)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-meat-get-over-it/664144/95 "2013-07-26T00:33:36Z")
Once, at university, I saw half a dozen descriptivist linguists viciously beating up one single prescriptivist. Someone asked me: “Aren’t you going to help?” I answered: “Nah, they’re six guys, they’ll manage just fine on their own.” 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Doughbag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Doughbag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doughbag)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-meat-get-over-it/664144/96 "2013-07-26T11:42:19Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > I’ve been reading this thread trying to get a handle on the OPs point, and it’s dumb as hell. No argument here. However, I can somewhat understand the frustration, since my own learning of English has caused me some frustration and given laughable moments to me and mostly to others about me. > [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > Get the fuck over yourself. American English is one of the few languages where it might be an issue. > > Guess what? We have a perfectly good word for animal flesh. It’s flesh. > If you want a general word, use the word flesh, you dolt! No chance of being misunderstood then. Not just English has this stupid issue, Google translates [Fruchtfleisch](http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruchtfleisch)into flesh. I commonly here people referring to the flesh of fruits…. [Here’s one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durian) [Flesh](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesh) [Meat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat) > [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > Just like “Americans” is understood to mean people from the US, no matter how much mouth-breathing pedants want to claim it can mean people from virtually anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. Yes, like tourists from the USA call an black guy here in Ireland “African American” … - No, you fucking idiot, he’s African! A Black guy from the USA for me (and most others) is an US American – we don’t give a shit what you call your people yourselves. > [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > If you want a general word, use the word flesh, you dolt! No chance of being misunderstood then. He might be a dolt, but sadly flesh does not work either – fucking English and the use and meaning of words changes all the time. Enjoy 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-meat-get-over-it/664144/97 "2013-07-26T11:51:14Z")
> [@Doughbag](#): > > Yes, like tourists from the USA call an black guy here in Ireland “African American” … - No, you fucking idiot, he’s African! And not, confusingly, [Black Irish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_people#Black_Irish). 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-meat-get-over-it/664144/98 "2013-07-26T12:02:11Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > And not, confusingly, [Black Irish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_people#Black_Irish). 😛 I think the worst example of that I ever saw was someone referring to Australian Aborigines as African-American. Wrong on both counts :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Doughbag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Doughbag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doughbag)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-meat-get-over-it/664144/99 "2013-07-26T12:19:39Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > And not, confusingly, [Black Irish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_people#Black_Irish). 😛 Yeah, the Irish pastry skin is easily confussed with dark skin… 🙂 > [@Steophan](#): > > I think the worst example of that I ever saw was someone referring to Australian Aborigines as African-American. Wrong on both counts :smack: Yup! Thanks for both giggles ---
**Author:** ![corkboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@corkboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/corkboard)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-meat-get-over-it/664144/100 "2013-07-26T16:01:20Z")
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