Timeline for Can we invent English words based on similar usage? Ex, "can you eat a mouse" or ".. eat mouse"?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
13 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 23 at 17:25 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | Lots of Anglophones eat things like oysters and snails, but they don't normally say I eat oyster or I like snail, just as people would only say I eat pig facetiously. It's just that there are a few words that can apply to both the whole animal and its flesh considered as food (chicken, fish, lamb, rabbit,...) | |
| Jun 29, 2017 at 16:22 | comment | added | fixer1234 | Seems like a duplicate of Can we invent English words based on similar usage? Ex, "can you eat a mouse" or ".. eat mouse"? | |
| Jun 29, 2017 at 14:29 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | @Hot Licks ... and watch the pounds fly off? | |
| Jun 29, 2017 at 12:21 | comment | added | Hot Licks | @EdwinAshworth - Careful -- you might have to eat crow. | |
| Jun 29, 2017 at 7:57 | history | edited | Tom | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 34 characters in body
|
| Jun 29, 2017 at 7:31 | history | edited | Tom | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 224 characters in body
|
| Jun 29, 2017 at 7:25 | comment | added | Tom | @EdwinAshworth, I found a lot of "eat dog meat", so the safest way is to put "meat" before "dog", "mouse"..... | |
| Jun 29, 2017 at 6:41 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | By 'Can we invent English words based on similar usage?' you mean 'Is massification of animal names when referring to eating the animal's meat a totally productive feature in English?' If there's an idiomatic plural alternative (I've never eaten snails / cockles / mussels ...), I'd stick with that. Using say 'We were eating helmetshrike / gnateater / Australasian babbler / pardalote / gerygone // carpsucker / hammerjaw // sloth' sounds quirky or worse, and these are probably better rephrased. But massification is very common, and certainly hereabouts. | |
| Jun 29, 2017 at 5:35 | comment | added | Peter Point | @HotLicks Mouse was certainly on the menu in the Pax Romana of Europe. A recipe in Latin (Apicius) exists for the preparation and cooking of a dormouse. | |
| Jun 29, 2017 at 3:32 | comment | added | Roger Sinasohn | First off, ew! Second, birds are animals, last time I checked. Anyway, yes, you can use the countable form for food -- Costco sells fresh rotisserie chicken; I bought three chickens! As for would you like some more mouse and potatoes? sure, it works fine. I don't think it's a hard and fast rule about specific animals, but more about the context -- If you were really crazy, you might have grilled brick for dinner or maybe sauteed book. I think this also applies (more normally) to plants -- I might pick an artichoke and then we would have artichoke for dinner. | |
| Jun 29, 2017 at 3:11 | answer | added | D Krueger | timeline score: 3 | |
| Jun 29, 2017 at 2:35 | comment | added | Hot Licks | Since, at least in the US and Europe, it's not common to eat mouse flesh, dictionaries don't list "mouse" as an uncountable noun. But used in that sense it is -- you might (if you're ever invited to a Donner party) eat "mouse" or "cat" or "dog'. There is nothing wrong with this usage (even if you object to the diet). | |
| Jun 29, 2017 at 2:28 | history | asked | Tom | CC BY-SA 3.0 |