"Bees' nest"?!!! WTF!!!

[Ronald Butters]

I don't understand what the problem is. Why is it "bees' nest"  termed  "so-called"? What do you mean, "this kind of thing"? The use of "nest" instead of "hive"? There are over 3,500,000 Google hits for "hornet's nest."

Words do not have meanings that are discrete and insulated, There are fuzzy edges. Is a hive a nest? Is a magazine ever a book? How can we tell a glass from a cup? A chair from a stool? A game from a minor sport? A lexicographer from a prescriptivist nut?

On Feb 15, 2012, at 7:05 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> I first heard tell of the so-called "bees' nest" on an episode of the
> cartoon, Family Guy. Bad enough. But, last night, no less a
> commentator than Stephen Colbert appeared on television with a mock-up
> of a hornets' nest, which he referred to as
>
> "a bees' nest filled with yellowjackets."
>
> As has been argued elsewhere, this kind of thing is of no account
> because the semantic interpretation is perfectly clear. Besides,
> language-change is inevitable and inexorable, in any case. Why care,
> unless you're some kind of prescriptivist nut?
>
> An excellent point.
>
> --
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org