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

From:John Cowan <cowan@...>
Date:Saturday, March 13, 2004, 13:08
Philippe Caquant scripsit:

> 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);
"Punaise" seems to be a folk term for the genus _Cimex_, which includes _Cimex lectularius_, "bedbug" in English, the most specific sense of the term "bug". But if anything is clear at this point, it is that the exact denotation of "bug" is wildly variable among anglophones.
> or virus, or microbe, or (what normally hides in a computer > program). "To bug" can mean to hide microphones, or to harass somebody.
Indeed.
> 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).
Assuming that bilingual dictionaries are guides to cross-language connotation is very unsafe. I think it's plain that the connotation of "bug" is not harmfulness but repulsiveness. -- John Cowan jcowan@reutershealth.com www.reutershealth.com www.ccil.org/~cowan Rather than making ill-conceived suggestions for improvement based on uninformed guesses about established conventions in a field of study with which familiarity is limited, it is sometimes better to stick to merely observing the usage and listening to the explanations offered, inserting only questions as needed to fill in gaps in understanding. --Peter Constable