[Lexicog] Re: lexical entries as singulars or plurals

Rudolph C Troike rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU
Wed Aug 24 05:02:48 UTC 2005


In re Bill Poser's comment about catfish being considered inedible in
Japan, in Brownsville, Texas, where I grew up, people had the same
attitude. This is near the Gulf of Mexico coast, and the catfish were
salt-water "cats". They were considered a nuisance by fishermen, and
when caught were either killed or thrown back, or sometimes used for
bait. Some years later I was invited to my first fishfry in western
Illinois, and was shocked to learn that the fish being served was
catfish. It may be that the Japanese aversion is due to the fish being
saltwater catfish.

	Rudy Troike

P.S. I agree that "fishes" would refer to different kinds of fish, which
aligns it with the usage of plural noncount nouns to mean different kinds
of, such as "sugars", which would refer to such as lactose, fructose,
dextrose, etc., or "salts", etc.

--------------
   Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 09:47:20 -0400 (EDT)
   From: billposer at alum.mit.edu
Subject: RE: Re: lexical entries as singulars or plurals

I like catfish too. Curiously, in Japan, where people eat all manner
of things that Europeans tend to find disgusting, many people consider
catfish inedible.

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