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Re: Dinosaur a tecnical term; fish is not (was RE: Fish with milk (Sheesh spinoff))

On 10/26/06, Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. <tholtz@geol.umd.edu> wrote: 
> From: owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu [mailto:owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
> A.P. Hazen
>
> (*) Tom, didn't you  a few posts back applaud the insistence on not
> writing "dinosaur" for "non-avian dinosaur," because such a usage
> would be incorrect?  And haven't you, in responding to me, just  used
> "fish" to mean  "non-tetrapod fish"?  (Grin!)

Fair enough.

But also, to be fair, "fish" is an ancient English word far predating the science of 
biology, while "dinosaur" is a term from
technical literature, dates only to 1842, and created specifically for use in 
scientific contexts.


I suppose the next step will be insisting that all bilaterians are worms ...

--
Andreas Johansson

Why can't you be a non-conformist just like everybody else?