this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2024
192 points (92.1% liked)

Science Memes

10760 readers
3289 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.


Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 60 points 14 hours ago (3 children)

If 90% of the population call them seagulls, and 99% of the population understand what you mean when you say "seagull", then yes, they are actually called seagulls

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 hours ago

It's like what I say to bother botanists:

If half of the fruits with "berry" in their name don't fit your definition of berry, you need a new definition

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Annoy naturalists with these other animal names too: Jellyfish, crawfish, starfish, Killer Whale, Canadian Geese, and American Buffalo.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

wtf who's beefing with starfish

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

Typical customer service annoyant?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

Should we add an exception when it comes to technical discussions?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

If you're an ornithologist writing a scientific paper, you'd presumably be using a genus + species in Latin rather than any colloquial name anyway, while still acknowledging that they fall under the umbrella term "seagull" for most people. But I'm a descriptive linguist, rather than prescriptive, and that's really what this meme is about (it's not about seagulls)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 hours ago

Birds actually have scientific common names and it's completely acceptable to refer to them with those names. They even have standardized bird abbreviations using those names, like Red-tailed Hawk is RTHA. They of course use the latin names too, and those have their own abbreviations (Buteo jamaicensis is BUTJAM) but the common names are handier.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Noooo then how are we going to get memes like this?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 hours ago

I enjoy having semi-serious discussions about nonsense like this, so I appreciate RubberElectron's reply calling me out