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[–] 152 points 10 months ago (32 children)

Ok but "bug" has multiple meanings, and almost nobody means "hemiptera" when they say it. More commonly, it's any terrestrial arthropod. Arachnids are bugs. Centipedes are definitely bugs.

Heck, there's a broader definition that basically includes all arthropods. "Moreton bay bugs" are a popular food this time of year. And they're a kind of lobster.

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  • [–] 60 points 10 months ago (9 children)

    The ocean is quite literally lousy with sea lice. They've even got rolly-pollies down there.

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  • [–] 27 points 10 months ago (8 children)

    Not just roly-polies, but Rollison J. Pollimagnussons:

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  • [–] 17 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    What in the name of Cthulhu is this?

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  • [–] 19 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    I make a point of referring to birds as "feather-bugs", much to the weary resignation of my RL friends.

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago* (2 children)

    the birds and the bugs

    i don't actually know why it's called "the birds and the bees" (am not american, never had it in school) but i suspect it stands for the big and little flying things?

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    We don't really know where the phrase came from. My guess is that they're things from nature that alliterate, which makes it sound cute and innocent.

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  • [–] 18 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    terrestrial arthropod

    i'd like to differ

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (2 children)

    Crickets in cheeto dust taste fine...soon in a 7/11 near you 😛

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  • [–] 7 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    You’re already eating bugs, in fact the FDA has so-called “food defect action levels”, which define the acceptable levels of food “contamination” from sources such as maggot and insect fragments among other things (best not to think too hard about it) in your daily food.

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  • [–] 10 points 10 months ago

    Where I live, the definition of a bug is super liberal to the point of absurdity.

    But even that's been topped a few times over the years. When I used to be active on Reddit, I would participate in the "bug" identification sub. It wasn't frequent, but it also wasn't all the uncommon for folks to show up asking for ID on reptiles and amphibians, even remember that a shrew (or maybe it was some other small mammal) was posted once.

    It wasn't that big of a surprise for me. I used to work retail decades ago and I remember a customer who returned a bag of salad greens because there was a bug in it. The "bug" was a very small baby frog (just out of tadpole stage) -- likely some kind of tree frog.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    “Bugs” even refers to errors on computers. Funny how the pedants don’t go into computer forums and berate the coders for using “bug” incorrectly.

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    uh, slugs are bugs! any non-vertibrate animal is a bug

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  • [–] 26 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    uh, slugs are bugs

    I'mma be honest, I would not instinctively agree with this.

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  • [–] 14 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    I suggest "bug" applies exclusively to chitinous invertebrates.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    I'm trying to square my instinct that

    1. snails aren't bugs (because they're squishy without the shell) with the feeling that
    2. crabs are bugs (because they'd go tap-tap if you tapped on their exoskeleton with a finger) but
    3. hermit crabs aren't bugs if they're in a shell but are bugs if they're naked
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  • [–] 9 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    I would. I think that just goes to show how informal and unworthy of policing the term is. We even call viruses bugs a lot of the time.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    yeah, i would say "a bug is something that annoys you" so a virus could maybe be perceived as a bug as well, though i also would like to point out that "annoy" does not mean "i don't like it". it's like doing sports, it can be painful but also very fun

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  • [–] 57 points 10 months ago

    Sometimes calling someone a big dumb bitch is the only appropriate course of action.

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  • [–] 51 points 10 months ago* (7 children)

    Rattling off insect classifications while a simple pun goes over you're head is a great demonstration of the difference between knowledge and intelligence.

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  • [–] 26 points 10 months ago (6 children)
  • [–] 29 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    Yeah, but I'm not fixing it, you big dumb bitch.

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  • [–] 47 points 10 months ago

    Neither usernames check out

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  • [–] 47 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Usernames DO NOT check out

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  • [+] 78 points 10 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 28 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    And they drink Bug Lite when they're concerned about their weight.

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  • [–] 38 points 10 months ago (24 children)

    “Bug” is a folksy word for any invertebrate with 6 or more legs. For example, they call lobsters and crayfish bugs.

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  • [–] 25 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    many people call slugs, snails, and worms bugs too. So any invertibrate with the right vibes

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    So there is no such thing as a bug, in the same way that there is no such thing as a tree

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Or a fish! If there were, then people would be fish and sharks would not be.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago

    Fish could be defined as the most recent common ancestor of tuna and herring, and all of its descendants. That would exclude sharks and lungfish, but would include most other groups that we unambiguously recognise as fish, while excluding tetrapods.

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  • [–] 10 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    I've learned recently that "Vegetable" is kind of like that too. Like most vegetables are fruits, seeds, leaves, roots, etc etc. Vegetable is a culinary term, not a botanical one, and it's still foggy. It's basically a plant that isn't sweet, but they also call sweet corn a vegetable so whatever.

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago

    Not only is vegetable like that, but "fruit" is like that too. Notably, apples and strawberries are not botanical fruits, each little "seed" on the strawberry is the fruit, and the section of core around each apple seed.

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    If a pillbug/rollypoly/potato bug/doodlebug/ is a bug? Then lobsters and crabs are absolutely bugs. This actually doesn’t bother me.

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  • [+] -8 points 10 months ago (8 children)

    bug is typically something that stings, while insect is more generic.

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  • [–] 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Not always. Flies, ants, and mosquitoes are all considered bugs, despite having no stinging capacity to speak of.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (4 children)

    Well no but yes.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemiptera

    Hemiptera (/hɛˈmɪptərə/; from Ancient Greek hemipterus 'half-winged') is an order of insects, commonly called true bugs, comprising more than 80,000 species within groups such as the cicadas, aphids, planthoppers, leafhoppers, assassin bugs, bed bugs, and shield bugs. They range in size from 1 mm (0.04 in) to around 15 cm (6 in), and share a common arrangement of piercing-sucking mouthparts.[3] The name "true bugs" is sometimes limited to the suborder Heteroptera.[4]

    But wasps can sting and they're not bugs. They can also bite. So the key part is piercing with their mouth. For true bugs (as in the biological sense)

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Whenever I hold up a bug, and say to everyone, "Look, a bug, of the true order of bugs," everyone leaves the room because I'm doing the bug speech again

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  • [–] -1 points 10 months ago*

    Yeah that's because that sounds funny. You should change it to something like "look, a bug. And I say that as this is a member of the order 'hemiptera', also known as 'true bugs.'"

    Or perhaps it's just your face? People listen to me quite easily.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (1 child)

    i said typically, and colloquially. literally zero people refer to hemiptera specifically when they say bug. if you look at the american heritage dictionary, that's the exact order used in the definitions:

    #bug
    /bŭg/

    noun

    1. An insect having mouthparts used for piercing and sucking, such as an aphid, a bedbug, or a stinkbug.

    2. An insect of any kind, such as a cockroach or a ladybug.

    3. A small invertebrate with many legs, such as a spider or a centipede.

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  • [–] -2 points 10 months ago

    American

    Very ethnocentric of you. I first heard it from Stephen Fry, so no, not literally zero people.

    Also, it's literally the first definition there. That's the definition of the species in hemiptera. Just because you don't know anyone who knows orders of animals in latin doesn't mean we don't exist.

    I for one always enjoyed reading taxonomy, especially because sometimes translating a species can be quite weird if you don't know the translation and have to essentially hope that the yellow-breasted warbler is the thing they also described it as in the other language. Sometimes it's another feature.

    But I'm sure you'd know roughly what I mean if I refer to the order of primates. Possibly the infraorder cetacean as well. Especially if you've watched Star Trek religiously.

    Stephen Fry on Insects, and the beauty of nature and Evolution

    That's the wrong clip but i can't be arsed to find it

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  • [–] 160 points 10 months ago (25 children)

    Telling someone to drink less beer and study more is wild.

    Academics in general have a long history of being alcoholics or alcoholic adjacent

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  • [–] 45 points 10 months ago (6 children)
  • [–] 12 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    I am in 1st year of college, I don't drink, and I am failing.

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  • [–] 16 points 10 months ago

    If you’re not joking, reach out to your college’s academic support/tutoring centers. They’re literally paid to be there and help you with your classes. Even if you understand all the class content already they can still help you with whatever you’re struggling with, like figuring out how much time a project needs or how to get it started/organized.

    I struggled my first go ‘round in college 20 years ago and wish I’d known that, now that I’m going back I’ve been using the support systems the college has a lot more and it’s been paying off.

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  • [–] 25 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Heavy drinking is considered irresponsible through your bachelor's. After that it's considered "networking" and "building professional relationships". With the implicit usage as a coping mechanism

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  • [–] 7 points 10 months ago

    Not just in academia. This is true for corporate life. There are happy hours left and right which are as much networking as they are excuses to have someone else buy you drinks

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  • [–] 16 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    There are three types of academics, ones that are addicted to alcohol, ones that are addicted to caffeine, and ones that are addicted to both.

    (For health reasons I dont reccomend both at the same time)

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  • [–] 10 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    I'll never forget my proffessor that just slammed monster and chain smoked cigarettes during fieldwork.

    I only saw him drink water once. It was about 115 (Fahrenheit) and he took a single sip of water from a nalgene before putting it away.

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  • [–] 20 points 10 months ago (8 children)
  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    Akshully I think it's either "less beer" or "fewer beers" (plural).

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  • [–] 7 points 10 months ago

    To build on this, this usage is called a non-count noun. Less beer, less water, less air, less sand, etc. all refer to non-countable quantities of some substance. Beer could be counted, if referred to by some metric (“one glass of beer,” “24 ounces of beer”), same as “a bottle of water,” “one tank of air,” “a truckload of sand.”

    Which is all to say that you’re right. “Less beer” makes far more sense than “fewer beer.”

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    Screw you! I drink what I want. (And can stop at any time)

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

    It's a way to dull the senses to how retarded everyone around and especially above you is, maybe...until you need your plumbing done or the damn printer fixed 😅

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