That would be a Trope Repair Shop matter.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
- Portraying all snakes as being both venomous and constricting, though most (with a few exceptions like the Australian brown snake) are strictly one or the other. This is particularly frequent in tabletop RPG's.
My theory is that, let's face it, something that can kill you by both a Kiss of Death poisonous bite and suffocation is just a plain-out horrible way to go. The reason it's common in media is that it's positively terrifying!* Or, you know, alternatively it can be considered Wish-Fulfillment to any Blood Knight who likes overkill (for the RPG example).
Edited by 76.28.217.19
It is not "wrong" to call reptiles poisonous. What is wrong is to pretend that the largely arbitrary conventions of biologists, concocted solely to save explanations in their writing, is normative for the common speech that the biologists appropriated the terms from in the first place. It is exactly as wrongheaded as if English-speakers presumed to say Nahuatl Indians were "incorrect" in their use of the word "tamalli", based on our appropriation of it as the word "tamale".
Also? "Venom" and "poison" mean, objectively, the exact same thing; one is just Latin and the other is French. They both mean "a drug or toxin, primarily consumed by drinking". "Poison" more directly derives from the idea of a drink (it shares a root with "potion" and "potable") but "venom" derives from, specifically, love potion—it shares a root with "Venus" and "venereal".
Newsflash: there is nothing intrinsically "right" about academic jargon. Academic jargon is a particular register with particular conventions, used by scholars to save time. It is no more "correct", nor is deviation from it (outside that context) "incorrect", than using British or American English is "incorrect".
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Poisonous versus venomous is a valid distinction when talking about reptiles. You won't get poisoned if you eat snake meat because the flesh itself is not poisonous. But if you eat a poison dart frog you will get hurt. Venomous means that the toxin must be injected to take effect. They are two distinct and valid categories.
We really do not care about the history or origin of the words. It's like arguing that galaxies and galactose are the same thing because they have the same root word in Latin. And you're right, you're not being pedantic, you're being the opposite of pedantic and I'm not sure there's a proper word for it. But if you want to rant about scientific jargon go somewhere else.
Edited by 216.99.32.42 Face the past and you'll fly ass first into the future. - My Dad
The point is, it is not, outside the academic literature, an error to call a snake poisonous. Because snakes are poisonous. If it in any way, shape, or form, involves a toxin, it is poisonous—by the rules of actual language as actually used outside the special made-up conventions of scientists. It is no more "wrong" to say "that snake is poisonous" than it is to say "sono hebi wa doku ga aru"—in both cases, the person asserting the statement is wrong has to assume that their form of language is correct and that another, though equally capable of conveying the precise same information, is incorrect—merely because it conforms to a different set of conventions.
If you let biologists tell people they're using a word wrong, and biologists didn't coin it, why don't you just go ahead and get your opinions on vaccination from Jenny McCarthy? She's just as qualified an epidemiologist as biologists are linguists.
Edited by 69.172.221.8
In the context of talking about animals and classifying them poisonous and venomous are not the same thing. Not the same thing as linguistics and quite frankly linguistics don't matter in that context.
I don't know what beef you have with scientific classification but bring it somewhere else. But with reptiles Venomous =/= Poisonous.
Edited by 216.99.32.42 Face the past and you'll fly ass first into the future. - My Dad
I don't have any issue with scientific classification. I have an issue with people deciding that other people's discourse is wrong because it doesn't conform to the arbitrary conventions of a totally different context.
Do you understand that saying that speech that doesn't follow the conventions of biology jargon is wrong is exactly as idiotic as saying that speech that doesn't follow the conventions of Latin is wrong?
I don't know where you get the idea that biologists invented the language, but they didn't. This is an issue of terminology, therefore language, therefore linguistics, and biologists are not qualified to have opinions.
Look you already got your potshot in my potholing "proper term" to Grammar Nazi. But it is incorrect to call a rattlesnake poisonous. It has to bite you for the venom to take effect. Just touching it or eating the flesh of it will not hurt you.
And seriously? Biologist are not qualified to have opinions on classifying creatures they study?
Edited by 216.99.32.44 Face the past and you'll fly ass first into the future. - My Dad
No, they're qualified to classify things, but they're not qualified to have opinions about whether people who are not biologists are using words right. They didn't make the words, and they don't study words.
I assume, by the way, that you're going to insist that all the Guns and Gunplay Tropes be renamed to Firearms and Shooting Tropes? You do know that in military usage "gun" refers only to artillery? And of course we wouldn't want this vulgar "common usage" nonsense to interfere with technical correctness.
Edited by 69.172.221.4
Now you're just nattering on the article and that is not allowed.
Face the past and you'll fly ass first into the future. - My Dad
Oh, but my speech has content and it isn't very long. The definition of "natter" is "to talk without content and at length". Don't you want everything to be perfectly technically correct?
If you want to put that in a [[note]] be my guest, but it will probably get cut again for being off topic with the trope. This is an article about reptiles, not linguistics.
Edited by 216.99.32.45 Face the past and you'll fly ass first into the future. - My Dad
Here linguists all thought they should study usage in as many possible contexts and registers as possible, and compile corpora of texts and recordings, then analyze statistically to determine what words mean.
Thank you, thank you, for demonstrating that they should actually allow biologists to simply tell them by fiat what words mean! The true nature of science is doing precisely what you're told by an authority, with no research whatsoever!
You got your note. People are free to ignore it if they wish. I can't promise that someone else won't take it out but I consider it closed.
Edited by 216.99.32.42 Face the past and you'll fly ass first into the future. - My Dad
I once drew a king cobra with a rattlesnake tail. Sure, it wasn't in the least bit accurate, but it looked pretty badass.
Removing this on the assumption that the second line is right about Science Marches On. If science hasn't marched in that direction, please restore :)
- Dear and fluffy Lord, all the fan fics, who have snake spies reporting what they hear to a master. Ignoring the silliness of snakes understanding human speech, snakes do not have ears. They can detect vibrations in the ground and water, but they cannot detect airborne sound waves.
- Science Marches On in this case. Research has shown that snakes actually can hear airborne noises, even though they lack some of the specializations for hearing that their lizard kin have.
This trope still has the discredited "Somewhere A(n) X Is Crying" snowclone title. I think it should be renamed to the more recent and accepted "Artistic Liscense - Herpetology".
"That is hard to argue or agree with." ~Penny Hide / Show Replies