Venom vs Poison
from fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz on 11 Sep 2024 09:11
https://mander.xyz/post/17910795
from fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz on 11 Sep 2024 09:11
https://mander.xyz/post/17910795
threaded - newest
If I call a snake poisonous, or a frog venomous there is no knowledgeable person that will be confused about what I’m saying. The only people who bring this point up are people who love to be pedantic.
Would you say the same thing about being envious and being jealous?
And nauseous vs. nauseated.
Don’t forget literally and figuratively
In the way that language is commonly used, yes. People have been using it wrong for so long “jealous” has effectively become synonymous with “envious”. Even if I dislike and disagree with it being used this way.
If someone is eating a donut and you say “I’m so jealous [of having the donut]” I’m fairly confident most everyone would understand you mean envious by definition but are using the word jealous to convey that meaning.
Here’s my comment from the last time this came up (like a week ago):
“There’s been no meaning shift. The “possessive” and “envious” uses of jealous both date from the 14th century in English, and both senses were present in the ancestors of these words all the way back to Greek.”
It’s always been synonymous with “envious”, as far back as we can trace.
Ah, than there’s no issue to begin with
Unless we’re talking about eating the snake. That could cause some confusion.
You called?
You sound like the kind of person that thinks tomatoes are vegetables.
How dare you!
This is the flip side of people trying to justify all kinds of obviously incorrect language by saying it’s just the language evolving.
If it’s colloquially accepted then that does tend to be the case.
If they are just saying the wrong words and trying to justify it, that’s a different story. But far too often it’s colloquial and classicalists are just being obtuse by not growing with the language.
Ah, but we can go even further beyond in pedantry. This distinction is only exclusive when we’re talking about a living thing. When talking about the substances themselves, one is a subcategory of the other. A venomous snake is not poisonous, but a venomous venom is a poisonous poison.
🤓 ahkschully venom is a poisonous toxin
~/s~
Actually a lot of venom is perfectly edible so long as you don’t have a stomach ulcer or cut in your mouth or something.
This is also true. Poisonous doesn’t specifically mean “dangerous when eaten” when talking about the substance. It is an insanely broad category. It basically just means the substance is harmful.
Yep, and even when talking about living things it’s not a clear distinction.
In biology, poison is a substance that causes harm when an organism is exposed to it. Venom is a poison that enters the body through a sting or bite. In a bunch of medical fields though, poisons only apply to toxins that are ingested or absorbed through the skin and that definition sometimes carries across to zoology.
Venomous creatures are poisonous by most definitions because venom is a poison. But if the distinction is useful in a medical or zoological context then they’re not.
tldr: The pedantry of eg. correcting someone who says a snake is poisonous is totally pointless and mostly wrong.
Wait until you have to go out in the wilderness and eat snakes. Then you find a non-venomous snake with hypodermic poison.
A possibly important distinction is lost, though.
Maybe calling a Snake Poisonous
But if you tell me a Frog is venomous I’m certainly going to misunderstand and get away from it asap
Because funnily enough iirc there are actually venomous frogs that kill if they touch you
Voodoo like they’re suggesting is made up of old racist ideas about certain religions and spiritual practices. So no, they’re wrong and racist about that part.
I’m pretty sure it’s a joke to refer to some form of mysterious, unknowable power conducted by secretive practitioners or something. However, if you’re gonna get upset about it and accuse people of being bigots then you should probably be more specific about which religion you’re referring to and what’s wrong with their statement. There are a number of religions that get called “voodoo” like Louisiana Voodoo, Haitian Vodou, Hoodoo, and Juju. Some of these religions encourage secrecy, others don’t. Some incorporate magic, others don’t. Some use talismans, others feature spiritual possession, and so on.
Edit: like, I’m not saying you’re necessarily right or wrong, but you gotta be more specific if you want to clear up misconceptions, and you have to make sure you have your facts straight. You can’t just say, “X is wrong/bad” and expect everyone to go along with it if they can’t see why it’s wrong or bad. Yes, you could just tell people to shut up and get with the program, but the kind of people who are willing to just “shut up and get with the program” probably are not going to be strong supporters because they don’t really understand what they’re supporting.
Fun fact: a hoodoo is also a kind of rock formation.
What if I put poison on my teeth, bite someone and they die?
Unlikely. You probably will injest the poison and die, and depending on if the poison also acts as a venom they may / may not.
It’s probably more accurate to say "Venoms are injected. Poisons are injested. "
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithridatism
But I also suspect that there are poisons which are deadly when injected and more mildly toxic when ingested. But I am not a chemist.
The poison from those frogs is deadly when injected. The natives use it to tip their darts and arrows.
In german there is only one word for it, which is a gift for german speakers.
Literally Gift or giftig.
I’d take poisonous/venomous over German grammar.
Same in Spanish. Veneno for both posion/venom.
.
The fact that we’re having this discussion at all kind of proves that either English is losing the distinction, or it was never as clear a distinction as people sometimes make it out to be. Either way I’m fine with it because it doesn’t seem like a very useful distinction to make in everyday language, and you can sidestep it entirely by using a word like toxic instead.
We say poison tipped arrows, not venom tipped arrows, so there’s at least one example of the words being interchangeable.
Nah, if I remember right, those arrows use the poison from a tree frog’s skin, not something like a snake’s venom. So still poison!
Same in Norway with “gift”. Also, the same word is used for “married”.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/83437dfd-c413-457e-8f35-c79be78a49e1.jpeg">
Chomp!
Froakie is unable to battle!
this whole thread bites
Yep, seen this one before, by the standards outlined it means that:
Lava is poisonous and Bears are venomous.
Hmm, I was going to say there’s a chance you survive biting lava - but technically there’s also a chance you survive biting something poisonous.
So yeah, flawless logic. The most poisonous and venemous things happen to be the pure unbridled power of the earth and 900lbs of muscle and hungry.
<img alt="" src="https://www.fightersgeneration.com/characters/venom-sp.gif"> <img alt="" src="https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/streetfighter/images/e/e7/Poison-flip2.gif/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/163?cb=20130819202120">
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.kde.social/pictrs/image/4ffd3a19-ee46-4b2a-8552-31455b826f9a.png">
Aw, it works on my end. They’re Marvel’s Venom and Final Fight’s Poison sprites.
On removing this part,
/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/163?cb=20130819202120, it works in my case.Dunno about others.
<img alt="" src="https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/streetfighter/images/e/e7/Poison-flip2.gif">
Images are always tricky with the different ways people view Lemmy.
Yeah. In my case, the thumbnails from mander.xyz posts don’t show up because the web UI I use, requests the picture converted to a webp format, which mander’s server doesn’t understand (the request).
So, in case I want to see the picture, I have to get the link and open it separately and remove the extra query part, to see the image. Or I could the inspector tool to change the URL value inline.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/245ae387-c249-4b58-9631-59e093150591.jpeg">
<img alt="" src="https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/mask/images/5/57/Miles_Mayhem.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20180219032033">
(This one’s pretty obscure)
This explains the name poison ivy.
.
Aren’t those frogs also venomous? The natives use their toxin for tipping their hunting darts and arrows.
The toxins are excreted through their skin, and adhere with the oils that keep their skin moist. It is a defense that keeps other animal from eating/touching them. They are not really facilitated to bite as a defense. They pull prey in, and their mouth mostly crushes, and is used to swallow.
I meant that if we’re saying it’s venom when it kills you by it being introduced to your bloodstream, then their poison is also venom.
From the Natural History Museum UK website -
The hallmark of venom is that it’s introduced via a wound. It can be injected through a number of means, including teeth, a sting, spines or claws. ‘Poison is different as there is no wound involved. It can be absorbed into the bloodstream through the skin, inhaled or ingested,’
Afaik they all kill you by being introduced into your bloodstream, the difference is mainly how they’re able to accomplish getting there. So any poison will kill you if you inject it, but venom will mostly be safe to eat barring any wounds.
@fossilesque Your chance to replace the legs of one person with the Saddam Hussein figure…
Can something be both poisonous and venomous at the same time?
Good question. Not an expert. Or even a amateur. But yea eating the venom can’t be good.
<img alt="" src="https://i.imgur.com/UrYRpDP.png">
I knew something was up. We’re onto you /u/fossilesque
Can’t pull a fast one on you lot smh