this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2024
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Aside of the obvious meme joke. Well, language eveolves, maybe the distinction isn't that important any more. Other languages don't have it and usually you add more context to something. Also when was the last time you tried to eat an unknown animal? Or where in a situation, where you had to decide if the dangerous looking animal is only supposed to be uneatable instead of venomous?
as much as i believe languages are living tools, cannot be constrained by rules, and will evolve no matter how much old timers complain
if you tell me about a "venomous mushroom" I'll freak out at the possibility of such a being existing faster than you can explain how you don't really see a reason for the distinction between venomous and poisonous and that other languages don't even have it
To be fair, knowing how weird fungi can be, I wouldn't be entirely surprised.
Predatory fungi are, somewhat unsurprisingly, a thing, after all, though they don't seem to use poison...
In German venomous and poisonous is the same word. It absolutely does work.
Tbh I feel like it’s a very important distinction . There are poisonous things that aren't harmful unless ingested. However something that is venomous is probably ready to attack if approached
It's kind of funny, because in other languages it doesn't use this distinction and people don't eat poisonous mushrooms because someone called them venomous by accident, or the other way around with a venomous animal.
I'm fine with language naturally changing over time as it does, but I'm not a big fan of people gleefully cheering on as words lose meaning because people can't handle being corrected about the current meaning/intent of words.