Would you say the same thing about being envious and being jealous?
Comment on Venom vs Poison
Kalkaline@leminal.space 1 year ago
If I call a snake poisonous, or a frog venomous there is no knowledgeable person that will be confused about what I’m saying. The only people who bring this point up are people who love to be pedantic.
LoreleiSankTheShip@lemmy.ml 1 year ago
BugleFingers@lemmy.world 1 year ago
In the way that language is commonly used, yes. People have been using it wrong for so long “jealous” has effectively become synonymous with “envious”. Even if I dislike and disagree with it being used this way.
If someone is eating a donut and you say “I’m so jealous [of having the donut]” I’m fairly confident most everyone would understand you mean envious by definition but are using the word jealous to convey that meaning.
hakase@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Here’s my comment from the last time this came up (like a week ago):
“There’s been no meaning shift. The “possessive” and “envious” uses of jealous both date from the 14th century in English, and both senses were present in the ancestors of these words all the way back to Greek.”
It’s always been synonymous with “envious”, as far back as we can trace.
BugleFingers@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Ah, than there’s no issue to begin with
cheesymoonshadow@lemmings.world 1 year ago
And nauseous vs. nauseated.
Chekhovs_Gun@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Don’t forget literally and figuratively
MicrowavedTea@infosec.pub 1 year ago
Unless we’re talking about eating the snake. That could cause some confusion.
SparrowRanjitScaur@lemmy.world 1 year ago
You sound like the kind of person that thinks tomatoes are vegetables.
Anticorp@lemmy.world 1 year ago
How dare you!
AEsheron@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Ah, but we can go even further beyond in pedantry. This distinction is only wxclusive when we’re talking about a living thing. When talking about the substances themselves, one is a subcategory of the other. A venomous snake is not poisonous, but a venomous venom is a poisonous poison.
CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Actually a lot of venom is perfectly edible so long as you don’t have a stomach ulcer or cut in your mouth or something.
AEsheron@lemmy.world 1 year ago
This is also true. Poisonous doesn’t specifically mean “dangerous when eaten” when talking about the substance. It is an insanely broad category. It basically just means the substance is harmful.
TechLich@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yep, and even when talking about living things it’s not a clear distinction.
In biology, poison is a substance that causes harm when an organism is exposed to it. Venom is a poison that enters the body through a sting or bite. In a bunch of medical fields though, poisons only apply to toxins that are ingested or absorbed through the skin and that definition sometimes carries across to zoology.
Venomous creatures are poisonous by most definitions because venom is a poison. But if the distinction is useful in a medical or zoological context then they’re not.
tldr: The pedantry is totally pointless and mostly wrong.
AhismaMiasma@lemm.ee 1 year ago
🤓 ahkschully venom is a poisonous toxin
/s~___~
lolcatnip@reddthat.com 1 year ago
This is the flip side of people trying to justify all kinds of obviously incorrect language by saying it’s just the language evolving.
averyminya@beehaw.org 1 year ago
If it’s colloquially accepted then that does tend to be the case.
If they are just saying the wrong words and trying to justify it, that’s a different story. But far too often it’s colloquial and classicalists are just being obtuse by not growing with the language.
Neon@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Maybe calling a Snake Poisonous
But if you tell me a Frog is venomous I’m certainly going to misunderstand and get away from it asap
Because funnily enough iirc there are actually venomous frogs that kill if they touch you
Simulation6@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
A possibly important distinction is lost, though.
ulterno@lemmy.kde.social 1 year ago
Wait until you have to go out in the wilderness and eat snakes. Then you find a non-venomous snake with hypodermic poison.
CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world 1 year ago
You called?