Re: USAGE: names for pillbug/wood louse/woodbug

Suppose somebody would look in a good English or
American dictionnary, and tell us what a bug should be
?

Wasn't it Confucius who said that if he were at the
Empire's commands, the first thing he would do would
be to give back their names to things ? (or something
like that)

Incidentally, my Harrap's says for "bug": punaise
(which is a very specific sort of insect, usually
associated with the concept of "stinking"; can live in
woods or in beds, that being 2 different sorts of it);
or virus, or microbe, or (what normally hides in a
computer program). "To bug" can mean to hide
microphones, or to harass somebody.

So I can't see any millipede, scorpion or spider
around. Clearly, in "bug" there is a connotation of
"harmfulness", because the so-called "punaise" is
harmful (it bites). But that's all one can say.

--- Barry Garcia <barry_garcia@...> wrote:
> Constructed Languages List
> <CONLANG@...> writes:
> >Anything from a snail to a millipede, to a
> >grasshopper, to a tick, to an earthworm, to a fly,
> to
> >a bee, to a scorpion can be a bug.  Even a spider
> >*can* be.  Bug is a very general term for me.  It
> >includes any non-reptilian creepy-crawly thing.
> >
> >Adam
>
> Well i personally find that usage odd. But that's
> just me. I think as a
> child i called everything a bug, but after getting
> corrected i only
> usually call beetles bugs (or at least beetle-like
insects).


=====
Philippe Caquant

"He thought he saw a Rattlesnake / That questioned him in Greek: / He looked
again, and found it was / The Middle of Next Week. / "The one thing I regret',
he said, / "Is that it cannot speak !' " (Lewis Carroll)

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