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[–] 25 points 12 hours ago (18 children)

I think words like "goat" should have a generic and unstudied applicability: if it looks like a goat, and acts like a goat, it's a goat.

A mountain goat looks like a goat and acts like a goat, therefore it is a goat.

A sheep neither looks like a goat, nor acts like a goat, therefore it is not a goat.

All semantics, of course. If you want to understand goat to mean "member of genus Capra", you certainly can. If you want me to make goat mean that, you're out of luck.

I'm willing to grant you the distinctions between goats and true goats, in deference to the science of biology. I am not a monster.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 child)

    Well you talk about 'goat like behaviour', how many different types of goat cling to the side of mountains like some kind of Rock Lobster?

    My experience of goats is mainly in fields like, oh I dunno, a sheep?

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  • [–] 21 points 12 hours ago (5 children)

    I'm willing to grant you the distinctions between goats and true goats, in deference to the science of biology.

    Well that's my point: this post is about how common names contrast with actual, rigid taxonomical definitions. :p

    Like the colloquial word "goat" fits, but your comment read to me, given the context of the post, like you were saying goats can exist outside Capra via a technical definition, which isn't true.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 hour ago (1 child)

    True or false: The tomato is a fruit and a vegetable.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

    True in that it's a fruit botanically and a vegetable culinarily (or, less arbitrarily for the latter, that it's a part of a plant consumed for food).

    A carrot, as another fun example, is a root botanically, a vegetable culinarily, and, in the European Union, a fruit legally as a carve-out for laws about making jams.

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  • [–] 3 points 12 hours ago (5 children)
  • [–] 3 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (4 children)

    Actually, they're a COBRA programmer.

    They write JavaScript and COBOL for the GI Joe villains and public health care insurance providers

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  • [–] 2 points 9 hours ago (3 children)
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