Re: CHAT of pillbugs and pilcrows (was: Greek letter names etc)

On Wed, Mar 10, 2004 at 08:40:03PM -0500, Mark J. Reed wrote:
>
> The AHD lists "pill bug" as the primary entry, citing "wood louse",
> "doodlebug", "roly-poly", and "slater" as synonyms.  Interestingly,
> it indicates that all of the terms "pill bug", "wood louse", "doodlebug"
> and "slater" may refer to either two different categories of terrestrial
> crustaction, one consisting of species from genus Armadillidum and the
As I once again demonstrate my stellar typing ability.  "crustaction"
indeed.

I neglected to mention another term, "sow bug", which is in general use
synonymous with all of the above (again, except "roly-poly"), and
therefore able to refer to either category of crustacean.

When a technical distinction is drawn using the common names, the usual
choices are "pill bug" for the roly-polies and "sow bug" for the
non-roly-polies.

-Mark