5 ms·
A good word for something that encompasses all things creepy, crawly and tiny without involving scientific classification is "bug". Most english would agree tha
by sqeaky 10y ago
A good word for something that encompasses all things creepy, crawly and tiny without involving scientific classification is "bug". Most english would agree that most spiders, ants, bees, centipedes and other like it are all bugs.
This breaks down in Australia where the spiders are as big as your head or in Puerto Rico where the foot long centipedes eat bats. Those aren't bugs, those are nightmare fuel.
- david-given 10y ago'Bug' in that context is mostly American dialect. I'm British, and 'bug' in that context is infantile; by adults, it's either a verb or a small device planted by MI5. But the OP is right, of course. Spiders are not insects. Although I suspect that most people I'd talk to in the UK would call them such. I'll have to hand in my Pedant's Society card (which is actually made out of plastic)...
- dghughes 10y agoThen again the little grey oval Pill bug is a crustacean not an insect and not an arachnid.
- pacaro 10y agoAnd also another source of British vs. American dialect difference/confusion. In my experience, they're known in the U.K. as "woodlice", but in the US it's entirely reasonable for grown adults to refer to them as "roly-polys" The American use of "critter" also bemuses
- hnal943 10y ago"critter" is a corruption of "creature" and distinctly southern USA (to my Midwestern ears).