• Prandom_returns@lemm.eeEnglish
    41·
    2 hours ago

    Achkchually, a pineapple is neither a pine, nor an apple.

    It’s actually an ananananas.

  • Xenny@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9·
    5 hours ago

    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

  • Worx@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    922·
    20 hours ago

    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

    • brown567@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      34·
      13 hours ago

      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

      • Klear@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        3 hours ago

        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.

    • IMongoose@lemmy.worldEnglish
      22·
      17 hours ago

      Annoy naturalists with these other animal names too: Jellyfish, crawfish, starfish, Killer Whale, Canadian Geese, and American Buffalo.

      • Worx@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
        151·
        17 hours ago

        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)

        • IMongoose@lemmy.worldEnglish
          7·
          16 hours ago

          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.

          • Klear@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            7 minutes ago

            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?

        • Worx@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
          2·
          17 hours ago

          I enjoy having semi-serious discussions about nonsense like this, so I appreciate RubberElectron’s reply calling me out

  • Atelopus-zeteki@fedia.io
    66·
    21 hours ago

    The very first line of the Wikipedia entry on Gull says: "Gulls, or colloquially seagulls, are seabirds of the family Laridae in the suborder Lari. ". Colloquially speaking all gulls are seagulls.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gull

    The entry lists 54 species of Gull, and indeed from a pedantic perspective, none of their common names are “seagull”. Nor are any of their binomial names Latin for “seagull”. But there is Larus pacificus, either very calm or associated with the ocean of the same name. Also there is Larus atlanticus, and Larus Marinus (pretty dang close).

    • bisby@lemmy.worldEnglish
      62·
      21 hours ago

      I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as a Gull, is in fact, Sea/Gull, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, Sea plus Gull. Gull is not an categorization unto itself, but rather another component of a full identity made useful by the kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species components comprising a full identification as defined by its scientific classification.

    • topz@beehaw.orgEnglish
      2·
      17 hours ago

      In Swedish Larus Marinus is called “Havstrut” which would translate to Seagull but I guess that doesn’t count.

    • Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.netEnglish
      14·
      20 hours ago

      Fucking love seagulls. Grew up at the beach, gulls everywhere. They used to dig in our trash cans and we had to put heavy weights on the lids. Still fucking love em. They’re awesome, amazing trash birds who give zero fucks. I have seen gulls fully steal food from people’s mouths. I’ve seen them sit on windshields and refuse to move so you can drive, including just allowing the wipers to fwap into them repeatedly.

      Seagulls aren’t cunts. Seagulls serve cunt, and I love them for it.