In german there is only one word for it, which is a gift for german speakers.
this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2024
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I'd take poisonous/venomous over German grammar.
Literally Gift or giftig.
The fact that we're having this discussion at all kind of proves that either English is losing the distinction, or it was never as clear a distinction as people sometimes make it out to be. Either way I'm fine with it because it doesn't seem like a very useful distinction to make in everyday language, and you can sidestep it entirely by using a word like toxic instead.
We say poison tipped arrows, not venom tipped arrows, so there's at least one example of the words being interchangeable.
Nah, if I remember right, those arrows use the poison from a tree frog's skin, not something like a snake's venom. So still poison!
Same in Norway with "gift". Also, the same word is used for "married".
Yep, seen this one before, by the standards outlined it means that:
Lava is poisonous and Bears are venomous.
Hmm, I was going to say there's a chance you survive biting lava - but technically there's also a chance you survive biting something poisonous.
So yeah, flawless logic. The most poisonous and venemous things happen to be the pure unbridled power of the earth and 900lbs of muscle and hungry.
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.
Would you say the same thing about being envious and being jealous?
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.
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.
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And nauseous vs. nauseated.
Don't forget literally and figuratively
You called?
Unless we're talking about eating the snake. That could cause some confusion.
You sound like the kind of person that thinks tomatoes are vegetables.
How dare you!
Ah, but we can go even further beyond in pedantry. This distinction is only exclusive 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.
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.
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.
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 of eg. correcting someone who says a snake is poisonous is totally pointless and mostly wrong.
🤓 ahkschully venom is a poisonous toxin
~/s~
This is the flip side of people trying to justify all kinds of obviously incorrect language by saying it's just the language evolving.
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.
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Chomp!
Froakie is unable to battle!
I knew something was up. We're onto you /u/fossilesque
Can't pull a fast one on you lot smh
What if I put poison on my teeth, bite someone and they die?
Unlikely. You probably will injest the poison and die, and depending on if the poison also acts as a venom they may / may not.
It's probably more accurate to say "Venoms are injected. Poisons are injested. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithridatism
But I also suspect that there are poisons which are deadly when injected and more mildly toxic when ingested. But I am not a chemist.
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Can something be both poisonous and venomous at the same time?
Good question. Not an expert. Or even a amateur. But yea eating the venom can't be good.
this whole thread bites
Aren't those frogs also venomous? The natives use their toxin for tipping their hunting darts and arrows.
The toxins are excreted through their skin, and adhere with the oils that keep their skin moist. It is a defense that keeps other animal from eating/touching them. They are not really facilitated to bite as a defense. They pull prey in, and their mouth mostly crushes, and is used to swallow.
I meant that if we're saying it's venom when it kills you by it being introduced to your bloodstream, then their poison is also venom.
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@fossilesque Your chance to replace the legs of one person with the Saddam Hussein figure...
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