If 90% of the population call them seagulls, and 99% of the population understand what you mean when you say “seagull”, then yes, they are actually called seagulls
It’s like what I say to bother botanists:
If half of the fruits with “berry” in their name don’t fit your definition of berry, you need a new definition
Pretty sure botanists are aware that the same word can have different meaning outside of their scientific field. The people actually bothered by this are pedants who read about it on the internet, not people who studied botany.
A slight distinction:
The people actually bothered by this are the friends of pedants who read about it on the internet, not people who studied botany.
The pedants aren’t bothered, they’re elated they get to display faux superiority, I’m the one bothered by them!
Lol
What if I told you that words can have different meanings in different contexts? Just because the same word can be used to refer to different things depending on whether its used in everyday or scientific speech doesn’t mean either usage is “wrong”.
Doesn’t change that it was a bad idea to borrow a generic term for small sweet fruits to refer to a specific botanical feature. Not just bad, but completely unnecessary and frankly, simply, a bit stupid.
Annoy naturalists with these other animal names too: Jellyfish, crawfish, starfish, Killer Whale, Canadian Geese, and American Buffalo.
The buffalo thing pisses me off the most. Entire cultures are defined by that animal and it’s incredibly significant to the history of the prairies and the continent as a whole. So it seems to me pretty disrespectful to go to these people and go “um actually what you’ve been calling this animal for centuries is wrong actually because Linnaeus or whatever”
Canada Goose
Killer whale is orca which is a predatory whale.
wtf who’s beefing with starfish
Crawdads. Tasty with some hot sauce.
Should we add an exception when it comes to technical discussions?
If you’re an ornithologist writing a scientific paper, you’d presumably be using a genus + species in Latin rather than any colloquial name anyway, while still acknowledging that they fall under the umbrella term “seagull” for most people. But I’m a descriptive linguist, rather than prescriptive, and that’s really what this meme is about (it’s not about seagulls)
Birds actually have scientific common names and it’s completely acceptable to refer to them with those names. They even have standardized bird abbreviations using those names, like Red-tailed Hawk is RTHA. They of course use the latin names too, and those have their own abbreviations (Buteo jamaicensis is BUTJAM) but the common names are handier.
Here’s the thing. You said a “jackdaw is a crow.”
Is it in the same family? Yes. No one’s arguing that.
As someone who is a scientist who studies crows, I am telling you, specifically, in science, no one calls jackdaws crows. If you want to be “specific” like you said, then you shouldn’t either. They’re not the same thing.
If you’re saying “crow family” you’re referring to the taxonomic grouping of Corvidae, which includes things from nutcrackers to blue jays to ravens.
So your reasoning for calling a jackdaw a crow is because random people “call the black ones crows?” Let’s get grackles and blackbirds in there, then, too.
Also, calling someone a human or an ape? It’s not one or the other, that’s not how taxonomy works. They’re both. A jackdaw is a jackdaw and a member of the crow family. But that’s not what you said. You said a jackdaw is a crow, which is not true unless you’re okay with calling all members of the crow family crows, which means you’d call blue jays, ravens, and other birds crows, too. Which you said you don’t.
It’s okay to just admit you’re wrong, you know?
Wikipedia on Larus marinus, or the great black-backed gull:
The scientific name is from Latin. Larus appears to have referred to a gull or other large seabird. The specific name marinus means “marine”, or when taken together, “sea gull”.
If that’s not a seagull I don’t know what is.
Why does a seagull fly over the sea?
Because if they flew over the bay they would be bagels!
This joke echoes in my brain thanks to this one PBS commercial break snippet from my childhood. You’re welcome
I heard this joke for the first time a few weeks back on an episode of The Penguin. :D
Achkchually, a pineapple is neither a pine, nor an apple.
It’s actually an ananananas.
Je suis un ananas
Bonjour, allô, salut!
Sure, but ananananas-pen doesn’t have quite the same ring now does it?
Do dooo do do do,
ananananas,
Do do do do
Oh hey flying vermin.
Now I know this, I will be crying every time I go to the ocean
