"Bugs"

[ernst neering]

Hello everybody,

It seems I stirred up something with my remark on "bugs".
If you are in USA, you may never run in problems by using the word in a more 
general way than for Heteroptera only. The same with chrysalis becoming 
cocoon, caterpillar becoming worm. I ran in problems with it when working in 
non-english speaking areas. Therefor I insist on consistency.

Examples: in Indonesia the word "wereng" is used in an equivalent way to the 
use of "bug" (broad sense). Rice brown planthopper is wereng coklat, rice 
green leafhopper is wereng hijau. Both are Homoptera. The Chrysomelid soybean 
leafbeetle, Phaedonia inclusa, is called wereng kedele or kumbang kedele. 
When a bibliography on soybean publications was compiled by a non-Indonesian 
librarian, the name of the beetle was translated by looking up the words in 
dictionaries. The leafbeetle thus became soybean planthopper and, as kumbang 
not only means beetle in a general way but also carpenter bee (Xylecopa), the 
beetle also became soybean bumblebee...
The rice bug Leptocorisa is called walang sangit, walang or belalang means 
grasshopper, so it became stinking grasshopper. Confusion all over! The same 
can happen if the english words "bug", "cocoon", "worm" and the like are 
translated to an other language.

The remarks on "cocoon" remind me of something else. In a Farmers Field 
School for integrated pest management I was involved in, farmers thought that 
cocoons of Cotesia parasitoids (formerly Apanteles) on pseudoloopers were the 
eggs of the caterpillar. They were challenged to find out for themselves and 
they immediately realized that they were erring after keeping the cocoons in 
a jar and seeing the wasps emerge.

In my opinion the word bug, in the meaning of bugging you, was used 
originally for the bedbug Cimex which indeed was bugging people. The word has 
a definite negative meaning, one more reason for not applying the word to 
butterflies. Neil Jones may well be right in tracing the name to "bwg". Were 
bugbugs common in Wales or goblins/spirits?
Neil's comment on "psyche" reminds me of an entomology professor I know, who 
has a hobby in "insects in arts". In a lecture he showed a picture of a 
painting by Van Gogh, of prisoners in the yard of a prison. High up on the 
wall there are two or three butterflies, looking like cabbage whites. He 
interpreted this as: the body may be imprisoned, the "psyche" can not be 
contained.
Would it be possible that "bwg" was the Welsh translation of the Greec 
"psyche", but now with negative meaning attached to it. Both seem to have to 
do with spirits, souls, ghosts.

Re. Ken Philip's contribution: If you extend that a little bit, you may go 
free on the train if you can convince the ticket agent you are an insect by 
bugging him (or her).

Thanks everybody, I enjoy this type of e-mail exchanges.

Ernst Neering