• Worx@lemmynsfw.com
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    29 days ago

    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

    • brown567@sh.itjust.works
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      29 days 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

      • Klear@lemmy.world
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        28 days ago

        Pretty sure botanists are aware that the same word can have different meaning outside of their scientific field. The people actually bothered by this are pedants who read about it on the internet, not people who studied botany.

        • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          28 days ago

          A slight distinction:

          The people actually bothered by this are the friends of pedants who read about it on the internet, not people who studied botany.

          The pedants aren’t bothered, they’re elated they get to display faux superiority, I’m the one bothered by them!

          Lol

  • Atelopus-zeteki@fedia.io
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    29 days ago

    The very first line of the Wikipedia entry on Gull says: "Gulls, or colloquially seagulls, are seabirds of the family Laridae in the suborder Lari. ". Colloquially speaking all gulls are seagulls.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gull

    The entry lists 54 species of Gull, and indeed from a pedantic perspective, none of their common names are “seagull”. Nor are any of their binomial names Latin for “seagull”. But there is Larus pacificus, either very calm or associated with the ocean of the same name. Also there is Larus atlanticus, and Larus Marinus (pretty dang close).

    • bisby@lemmy.world
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      29 days ago

      I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as a Gull, is in fact, Sea/Gull, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, Sea plus Gull. Gull is not an categorization unto itself, but rather another component of a full identity made useful by the kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species components comprising a full identification as defined by its scientific classification.