I’m just curious as to why some vegans choose to omit the ‘‘a’’ and substitue an asterick.
The letter “a,” from the Greek alpha, was originally drawn as a stylized ox’s head. Therefore it is derived from an animal source and is not suitable for vegans.
(If this turns out to be the real reason, I’ll slap myself.)
Good one, Biffy.
But I’ve never seen a vegan spell it veg*n. Can you provide links to some examples so we can see it in context?
As a guess, I think it’s meant to include both “vegan” and “vegetarian”. However, I’ve never seen it in context, so if it’s clearly referring only to “vegan”, then I’m wrong.
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that used to refer to vegetarians and vegans.
I can’t find any example on the Web of “vegan” spelled with an asterisk.
Fckin’ vegns!
Really? these were all on the first page when I googled veg*n. There are plenty more.
http://www.nobrandheroine.net/cooking/index.html
http://www.catteacorner.com/exchange.htm
http://www.bostonveg.org/restaurants/diningtips.html
http://www.dietitian.com/vegetari.html
Vitameatavegaminarians
Ahh, much obliged. Thank you all.
I like ** Biffy’s ** explanation better.
Snip
/Snip
Brilliant!
It seems clear that the asterisk (*) as a wild-card symbol is borrowed from computer programming.
So, then, since it’s a wildcard, it would also include vegemeatatarians. These are people who freely eat both animal and plant parts.
It might… if that were a real word. But then they’d just come up with some other regular expression that excludes that.