Reminded by tweebianmonkey below...
Bugs:

Must be a biologist thing, but when people call spiders, ants, flies or anything like that "bugs".

They're not bugs, you shit-brained rim-licker.

Bugs are a specific type of insect with a sucking mouthpart.
I wouldn't call all birds chickens, so stop being so retarded.
( Cawl, Wed 7 May 2008, 10:04, 9 replies)

So you're saying
that biologists, with all their fancy latin names, got together and said "what shall we name those insects, those ones their with a specific sucking moutpart?" and one of them went "oh! oh! me sir! me sir! Call them bugs! please sir! please!"

and the rest of them agreed?
(Bazongaloid, Wed 7 May 2008, 10:10, closed)

Just read
This
( Cawl, Wed 7 May 2008, 10:13, closed)

Wow
B3ta, both amusing and intellectually stimulating.
(Bazongaloid, Wed 7 May 2008, 10:17, closed)

Like
A prostate examination?
( Cawl, Wed 7 May 2008, 10:19, closed)

"They range in size from 1 mm to over 10 cm, "
"over 10 cm"?

Surely, then, it's not a range.

Any Biologists know that ACTUAL range that should be there?
( Thinker, Wed 7 May 2008, 10:21, closed)

@ Thinker
I'm guessing the biggest ones are cicadas.


15 cm (6") - Pomponia imperatoria from Malaysia

Yep, that's over 10 cm... *rolls eyes at Wikipedia*
( Cawl, Wed 7 May 2008, 10:25, closed)

Shit
I didn't call them bugs did I?
That's an Americanism I don't much like.
Similar to saying "Where's Jimmy?"
"Oh... he's sick."
No he pissing isn't. He's ILL.
(tweebianmonkey Should be known as Widget, Wed 7 May 2008, 10:29, closed)

^^ Nope, you didn't
It just reminded me though!
( Cawl, Wed 7 May 2008, 10:32, closed)

Needless pedantry...
Sick, refering to a state of health, is unlikely to be an Americanism (being in popular usage a full 600 years before discovery of said continent).

The 'bugs' thing I have some sympathy with (also a biologist) but here the popular use precedes the scientific use. Indeed, according to my dictionary, ants and beetles were being described as bugs (bugges) before linnaeus was even born!

Mine is people who say 'genetically modified' when they mean 'transgenic', but that's pretty much everyone, so I try not to let it bother me.
(silene, Wed 7 May 2008, 11:30, closed)