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

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