Timeline for How did "lobster" mean two different species?
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15 events
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| Apr 29, 2015 at 16:15 | comment | added | Mari-Lou A | Thank you for answering my Q. 3. @Josh61 yes, I guessed as much; however, if I'm served an astice but charged the same for a spiny lobster, I'm being cheated!! | |
| Apr 29, 2015 at 13:49 | comment | added | user66974 | @Mari-LouA - in a lobster salad both a clawed lobster or a spiny lobster are used (if not specified). From the pictures you have provided it certainly is a clawed lobster salad. Lobster salad: foodnetwork.com/recipes/geoffrey-zakarian/… | |
| Apr 29, 2015 at 13:10 | history | edited | Centaurus | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Apr 29, 2015 at 13:01 | history | edited | Centaurus | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Apr 27, 2015 at 12:04 | comment | added | Mitch | @tchrist Also, scientifically (but certainly not informally) bugs (hemiptera) and beetles (coleoptera) are distinct orders so 'bugs... most of which are beetles' is mixing informal and technical terminology. | |
| Apr 27, 2015 at 12:00 | comment | added | Mitch | @tchrist Words have many meanings: TFD - bug: a. An insect having mouthparts used for piercing and sucking, such as an aphid, a bedbug, or a stinkbug. b. An insect of any kind, such as a cockroach or a ladybug. c. A small invertebrate with many legs, such as a spider or a centipede.. Here there was semantic shift between the general and the specific (I don't know which was first). 2 - Insects started in the Devonian with major radiations starting in the Permian (300 to 250 million years ago). | |
| Apr 26, 2015 at 19:54 | comment | added | tchrist♦ | @Mitch Sure they’re scientific: pace Balmain bugs which are actually butterfly lobsters, “bugs” are hemipters, the half-winged insects, most of which are beetles which don’t seem to go extinct. I’m not sure that your hundreds of millions of years thing is accurate, either. | |
| Apr 26, 2015 at 19:12 | comment | added | Mitch | @DavidRicherby These words we're using aren't scientific. People use the word 'bug' for all sorts of insects that are scientifically no closer than hundreds of millions of years. | |
| Apr 26, 2015 at 18:45 | comment | added | augurar | @DavidRicherby From a naive point of view, they are morphologically similar enough to be considered the same "type" of animal. | |
| Apr 26, 2015 at 16:55 | comment | added | David Richerby | But polar, black and brown bears are genetically rather close (polar and brown bears especially so: they can interbreed to give fertile offspring). Apples are closer still: they're different varieties of the same species. Clawed lobsters and spiny lobsters, on the other hand, are genetically rather distant: they're in the same order but that's as much as you can say. So the question is, essentially, "Why do we use the word 'lobster' for two completely different animals?" | |
| Apr 26, 2015 at 14:23 | history | edited | Centaurus | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Apr 26, 2015 at 14:15 | comment | added | Centaurus | @tchrist Yes, "People who have cause to use different names for different things......." but, imho, it's easier and more practical to add a second name to specify the new variety of fruit, insect or mollusc, than to coin a new name. Of course different peoples don't always do that and from what I've heard of the Chinese language, I think they have a word for almost anything.:) | |
| Apr 26, 2015 at 13:49 | comment | added | tchrist♦ | I think it’s more than that, unless you start including horse apples and pommes de terre with apples. :) It’s really a matter of familiarity and exposure. Someone in Kansas sees no need to distinguish things he sees rarely if ever, but someone in Marseilles or Barcelona or Rome sees all these different things all the time and therefore has a separate non-overlapping name for each of them — plus many, many more besides: just compare Romance names for other molluscs and crustaceans! People who have cause to use different names for different things do so, but those without that need do not. | |
| Apr 26, 2015 at 13:45 | history | edited | Centaurus | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Apr 26, 2015 at 13:40 | history | answered | Centaurus | CC BY-SA 3.0 |