stray
@stray@pawb.social
- Comment on ard 5 days ago:
Yes. It’s not too unusual for that sort of thing to happen. Feverfew and lungwort are plants named after their medicinal uses, and the tea plant and rubber tree are named for what they produce. Wheat means white, referring to the ground flour.
A lot of things might have had other names before a use was discovered, or they just might not have been named by anyone yet. I think most plants have probably had lots of different regional names within the same language. Flowers seem to collect a lot of names; I think they make us poetic because they tended to interact with human culture in many ways.
- Comment on 5 days ago:
T-Rex didn’t become famous until after Jurassic Park.
Really? I thought everyone knew T-rex when I was a kid. The only pick for Land Before Time I thought was weird was Duckie because I’m still not 100% sure what she is despite having looked it up a few times. The rest of the cast are what I’d consider your classic dinosaurs. But it’s hard to know what other people know when you’re an autistic kid.
- Comment on 5 days ago:
All birds today are actually coelurosauria dinosaurs, a group of theropods (T-rex and raptor-shape dinosaurs) who are thought to have all had feathers for warmth, show, and/or gliding and flight. I know we have evidence that some other theropods had feathers (or at least hairy stuff), but I don’t know whether the rest of them are lacking evidence of feathers or whether we have evidence against them having feathers.
I would also love such a book, preferably with lots of pictures.
- Comment on 5 days ago:
While the look is based in old misconceptions of dinosaur biology, the Jurassic Park dinos lacking feathers actually works really well for the story. They were never meant to be real dinosaurs. They’re just theme park attractions, so of course they look how the customers expect them to. Just like how most of them aren’t even from the Jurassic period.
- Comment on ard 6 days ago:
It could have a negative connotation. One could be a genuine wise man or essentially a snake oil salesman, so the word could be applied in both ways. It’s like how we use “genius” as an insult; we’re using the word in an ironic and sarcastic way.
Here is a collection of various uses throughout history:
- Comment on ard 6 days ago:
It’s not “too” something; it’s just being strong (hardy) or remarkable in that trait. A lot of sources list it as derogatory, but it isn’t so in all instances of use.
A wizard is not too wise, but very wise. Renard or Reinhardt is someone who gives good advice or makes good decisions.
The “must” in mustard is juice and pulp which you intend to ferment, because grape must was an ingredient. There’s a lot of debate over whether the “ard” is the one in this post or ardens (burning).
- Comment on To yoink is to be human. You weren't using that part of your soul anyways 1 week ago:
Isn’t the person who owns the rights despite nothing being owned the one doing the hoarding?
- Comment on It makes me shudder 1 week ago:
My T-shirts all have the tag at the bottom of the left seam.
- Comment on It makes me shudder 1 week ago:
Coughing can’t possibly be a symptom of any illness because I sometimes cough without being sick.
- Comment on The HOA isn't going to be happy about the colour, though. 2 weeks ago:
The way that’s angled, doesn’t it just immediately fill with water the first time it rains?
Why don’t they just change the tennis regulations to only use biodegradable materials?
- Comment on Nice horsie! 🐎 3 weeks ago:
I’m not sure why you’ve been downvoted because you absolutely could domesticate them given sufficient time and consistent selective breeding. You could turn them into crabs if you wanted to. The trouble is that they don’t have a very social disposition, so no one is motivated to dedicating their entire bloodline to the project. Most domestication happened kind of on accident as we developed symbiotic or exploitative relationships with various species.
- Comment on A succulent meal 3 weeks ago:
Wheat grain is strictly a vegetable, being an edible plant part. But people usually use the word to refer to a socially-constructed category which is completely feels-based. Membership tends to be determined by flavor profile, nutrition content, and whether the given part falls into another popular sub-category (such as fruit or nuts). This is why fruits like the tomato and pumpkin are usually sorted as vegetables separately from fruits with generally sweeter flavors like the banana or orange.
Vegetables like grains, legumes, and certain tubers will often be grouped together as “carbs” due to their high carbohydrate content which distinguishes them from low-calorie, high-fiber vegetables like spinach or broccoli.
- Comment on 3 weeks ago:
There are people young enough to be my children who I naturally think of as grown-ups, unlike myself. It has to do with multiple factors like wearing business attire, driving a car, not playing with toys or watching cartoons, etc. The kind of classic adult feel. I can’t even really cosplay being an adult like that.
- Comment on Beyond fucked up 3 weeks ago:
Lately I’ve been considering the idea that people under a certain age (16? 18?) should be banned from television and cinema altogether. My thinking is that it’s a form of child labor, and that they’re not able to consent to fame.
- Comment on 1 month ago:
If you have a problem with unfinished works, don’t ingest them until they’re finished. The artist doesn’t owe you anything.
- Comment on Great Mug 1 month ago:
The placebo effect would like a word.
- Comment on Anon and Rusty 1 month ago:
I think maybe most people don’t understand cats’ body language. Like they dont jump on you and wag their tail, so they must not love you.
- Comment on haha wow u got me 2 months ago:
Easily the best dating sim ever made.
- Comment on haha wow u got me 2 months ago:
Usually with birds the answer is sexual selection. As a group they seem to have a general preference for bright, colorful things.
- Comment on I am definitely a bird me personally 2 months ago:
To add, it’s distinct from regular rock climbing in that you don’t use a rope and have to climb back down.
- Comment on Off the Rails 2 months ago:
How so? (I’m assuming OOP is using the common definition of “animal” to exclude humans.)
- Comment on but like seriously do try it 2 months ago:
Thank you very much!
- Comment on but like seriously do try it 2 months ago:
My immediate assumption is that any observations made by me are meaningless noise and that I should avoid making them unless I see something really weird. But that could also be a problem because then it looks like shiny Caterpie is really common in this area while the regular one is rare. Do you know what behavior the creators of the app prefer?
- Comment on but like seriously do try it 2 months ago:
What does it mean that this bird is “likely in 4 today”?
- Comment on but like seriously do try it 2 months ago:
That is the correct spelling in this context.
- Comment on How about the digestive system? 2 months ago:
This is Crohn’s erasure.
- Comment on We wouldn't listen, anyway. 2 months ago:
You might like the novel We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler. I personally prefer to go into books without knowing much about them, so I will put the premise in a spoiler tag:
the premise
It’s about a woman who was raised from birth with a chimpanzee as her twin sister, as she tries to figure out why her sister suddenly disappeared from her life when they were young, and where she is now.
It has a fairly comic tone, which is very welcome given all the trauma.
- Comment on Contain them 2 months ago:
No, there are no asterisks in the actual URL.
"removed" appears where a word has been removed.
- Comment on Contain them 2 months ago:
I have to assume it’s in an automod filter, but I can’t imagine why. Is it a joke like how people say “Fr*nch”?
- Comment on Contain them 2 months ago:
*pretends to toss a treat*
