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But isn't the article trying to appeal to people? And here's the bigger problem I (well, I stated it over and over again: This was kinda introduced to me rathe

But isn't the article trying to appeal to people? And here's the bigger problem I (well, I stated it over and over again: This was kinda introduced to me rather recently) have: As a non-native speaker of English 'to kill' is neutral. A fox kills a hen. 'killer' is immediately associated with ethical and moral values, feels much closer to murderer. Actually .. I have trouble translating 'killer' back to my native language, German. 'Mörder' would be murderer, 'Jäger' is hunter - it might be that I'm just tired, but I cannot come up with something that might match 'killer' without either making the animal sound human and vicious (murderer) or diluting the whole term (hunter). Native English speakers: Is 'killer' something you read and understand as 'predator in nature'? Do you feel that this name comes with emotional baggage?

Swizec 11y ago
As a non-native speaker who lives in the US and does a lot of English. Killer also means twoplus good or exciting in some contexts. "Killer app" for instance. "Slang. something or someone having a formidable impact, devastating effect, etc.:" Orcas are nothing if not formidable.
Fomite 11y ago
> But isn't the article trying to appeal to people? The article might be appealing to people, but that doesn't really matter - what I meant from beyond "people" was that orcas don't kill people, but that doesn't make them not exceedingly good predators. Killer Whale meaning "Whale that is really, really, really good at killing things" seems entirely apt. Also, "also known as..." is just an easy way to make sure people who don't know what "Orca" meant now do.