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

[Ronald Butters]

It is not easy for me to imagine a situation in which calling a "bee" a "wasp" (or vice versa) would be unclear or confusing--maybe in a legally valid contract? ("I will and bequeth my bukkake film collection to Lawrence Horn; except that if I die of the sting of a bee, the collection goes instead to the Duke University Department of English"). 

And, again, while there may be exceptions in scientific taxonomy, in most everybody's English, it seems to me, "bee" is the only hypernym for "wasp" "hornet" "honeybee" "bumblebee" that doesn't include mosquitoes.



On Feb 16, 2012, at 12:38 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:

> If all one is concerned with is describing what some people are using,
> that's fine.
> 
> If one is also interested in evaluating whether that usage is clear or
> confusing, the facts about bees seem highly relevant, at least to me.

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