"Bugs"

[Neil Jones]

In message <3453BFC9.47A1 at gate.net> viceroy at GATE.NET writes:
> Dr. James Adams wrote:
> > 
> > Listers,
> > 
> >     I think most entomologists are aware of the fact that *true* bugs
> > (sensu stricto) are Heteroptera (or Hemiptera, depending on your
> > classification scheme), but I am also almost certain that all of us
> > talk or have talked about the "bugs" (sensu lato) that we work on.  I
> > just wanted to put in my two cents worth about Ernst's comment to
> > Sarah.  I personally think it is appropriate for a grade-schooler to
> > use the term bug however she wants to (I know *I* do!).
> > 
> >     James
> 
> in this context one may extend the term to spiders, millipedes and the 
> like, perhaps smallish tree frogs if imperfectly discerned ... certainly 
> tadpoles, efts and newts. 
> this is ok if you're a lumper.
> splitters don't like it. 
> the term is best used in the sentence "I just love all kinds of bugs."
> it may also be encountered in the phrase "My sister hates bugs. Does 
> this kind bite?" 
> i would be grateful, further, if we could just let the ignorant public 
> call chrysalids cocoons. i believe we have lost that one. 
> Anne Kilmer
> South Florida

This use of coccon for pupa seems to be an American phenomenon. I have not
encountered it here.

Incidentaly I believe that the English borrowed the word bug from us Welsh.
>From I believe the word "bwg" meaning a goblin or spirit of some kind.
Perhaps this sense is still present in the phrase "debugging the system".

There is an interesting parallel with the ancient Greeks apparently using
"psyche" to mean butterfly.




 

-- 
Neil Jones- Neil at nwjones.demon.co.uk "The beauty and genius of a work of art
may be reconceived, though its first material expression be destroyed; a
vanished harmony may yet again inspire the composer; but when the last
individual of a race of living things breathes no more another heaven and
another earth must pass before such a one can be again." William Beebe