• qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      46
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      8 months ago

      Yeah I always assumed “bug” was like “vegetable” — it’s a colloquial, not taxonomic, term. But there are “true bugs” so maybe the analogy isn’t completely sound.

      (And tomato is absolutely a vegetable.)

    • Lizardking27@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      I’m sorry but you’re simply incorrect.

      Bug is a technical term. Only insects of order Hemiptera, categorized by the ability to fly and the presence of piercing, sucking mouth parts, are considered true bugs.

      Lobsters are certainly not considered bugs.

      • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        18
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        8 months ago

        I’m sorry but you’re simply incorrect. Bug can be a technical term, but that doesn’t also preclude it from also being a non-technical term, because words often have more than one meaning. See also: theory.

      • frezik@midwest.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        8 months ago

        The scientific taxonomic system was made, in part, because traditional colloquial terms are a mess. For example, “daddy longlegs” refers to a type of spider in my area, but there are two other animals and three plants that it could refer to depending on where you grew up. Taxonomists saw that there are ten different standards, decided to make a new one to replace them all, and for once, it actually worked out for the most part.

        “Bug” is one of those old terms. It might have been mapped post hoc on top of the modern taxonomic system, but it didn’t start that way, and isn’t always used that way. I wouldn’t expect an entomologist to use the term at all in formal contexts.

      • RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        8 months ago

        But commonly it’s a catch all for any creepy crawly, including arachnid. The classification is even called True Bug, not just Bug