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

Well, this is rather exciting. Seems that everybody
has his own idea of what is a bug, and the semantic
fields are various ! Some think they look like
beetles, some assert that they creep or crawl, some
include spiders but not flies nor mosquitoes, some
think of flies as the archetyp for bugs, some talk
about millipedes or scorpions, some think they are
repulsive (by the way, I would incline to consider
lady-birds as bugs, but to me they aren't repulsive at
all; they're rather cute), some do the contrary.
Webster decided that they are Heteroptera. Even
crustaceans joined the band, that meaning that we
crossed over the border between insects and other
animals. We're far away from the original "punaise".

So we should try to make a cartography of the fields
that can be included in the concept of bug. Somebody
really should write a thesis about it.

In French, the closest word to bug would perhaps be
"une bestiole", but that only means a small animal.
True, we often think of insects when we talk about
bestioles (we say so especially when we don't know
exactly what kind of small insect this is), but I
recall having used this word about goats, the day they
decided to eat my map of Norway. Can a goat be a bug
(although not Heteroptera)? The debate is open.

--- Dan Sulani <dansulani@...> wrote:
>     I just got out my Webster's Third New
> International Dictionary
> (which took some doing --- it weighs, at a
> conservative guess,
> half a million tons ;-)   ). It says, among other
> things:
> "an insect or other creeping or crawling
> invertebrate
> (as a spider or small crustacean) --- not used
> technically".
> It also goes on to say: "any of certain insects
> commonly
> considered esp. obnoxious as (1): BEDBUG
> (2): COCKROACH (3): HEAD LOUSE" [Capitals, theirs
> not mine]
>     After this, it says: "an insect of the order
> Hemiptera:
> esp. : a member of the suborder Heteroptera".
>
>     Re: whether or not Americans consider spiders
> as bugs, consider:  in the March 15 issue of Time
> magazine,
> there is a short article entitled: "Tastes Like
> Chicken. Really", which begins:
>
>     "Bugs. Some people study them, a few keep them
> as pets..."
>
> and continues about a place where you can go in
> Cambodia
> in order to "munch on a deep-fried spider."
> (The article also suggests washing them down with
> "spider-infused rice wine"! )
>
>     Personally, (speaking as an American English L1
> speaker)
> I think I _would_ include spiders as bugs.
> I draw the line at scorpions though --- to me
> they're not "bugs".
> I'm not sure as to flies and mosquitoes.
>
>
> Dan Sulani

=====
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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