3 ms·

“There is no X” is an interesting trope. I’ve heard it with Fish and Trees as well.

• steve_adams_86 2y ago
  Would these not exist due to taxonomic reasons (trees are just big plants, fish are too many things to be one thing) or for other reasons?
  • vitus 2y ago
    Trees are also too many things to be one thing. https://eukaryotewritesblog.com/2021/05/02/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-tree/ https://eukaryotewritesblog.com/2021/05/02/theres-no-such-th... crops up on HN periodically. “Trees” are not a coherent phylogenetic category. On the evolutionary tree of plants, trees are regularly interspersed with things that are absolutely, 100% not trees. This means that, for instance, either: - The common ancestor of a maple and a mulberry tree was not a tree. - The common ancestor of a stinging nettle and a strawberry plant was a tree. - And this is true for most trees or non-trees that you can think of.
    • quinnirill 2y ago
      And it’s not just ancestors! One thing that blew me away after moving from Finland to Germany was that while willows in Finland are predominantly shrubs or bushes, and maples are trees, in Germany willows grow to be trees, but maples mostly stay as vines.
  • ansc 2y ago
    There's a book: "Why Fish Don't Exist" which is pretty good. Evolutionary, my understanding is that things are usually named after their ancestry (phylogenetically?), while fish are basically... "have fish shape and is in water" which becomes awkward. Lungfish and coelacanths are a lot closely related to humans than to salmon.