4 ms·

"no dad, I meant the blood sucking arachnids, not insects"

• CWuestefeld 16y ago
  D'oh! But in colloquial Chinese, do they reflect the same zoological classifications that we have in the West? Maybe they just have a generic "bug" or something. This is one of the things that's very easy to assume, but not doesn't really have any strong intrinsic logic to support, much like recent conversations here about color perception. Also, why do we always orient maps with the North pointing up or away from us, and reference those maps based on that assumed orientation? Why not have East pointing up?
  • joubert 16y ago
    unless the other guy quite literally doesn't have experience/knowledge of a tick, I think one can figure out a way to describe it :-) north: although ptolemy introduced the convention of north/up, I can easily see how the use of a lodestone could naturally give rise to the custom (north --> lodestone points forward; when you tilt the surface perpendicular to the ground, it is up).
  • sliverstorm 16y ago
    > Maybe they just have a generic "bug" or something. You have an excellent point there. I remember when I was learning Japanese I asked my teacher what the word for 'rat' was (mouse is 'nezumi') and she said just use 'nezumi', or use a qualifier e.g. 'ookii nezumi' (big mouse)
  • hugh3 16y ago
    For what it's worth, I saw an Australian stand-up comic once making fun of American English in which all insects are referred to as "bugs". (Australian English tends to reserve the word "bug" for beetles.) It was funnier in context, trust me.