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

[Wilson Gray]

On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 6:50 AM, Damien Hall <D.Hall at kent.ac.uk> wrote:
> I do seem to remember being confused by the larger usage for 'bee' when I first went to the States, and possibly not in a good way, as I'd be much more comfortable going close to a bee=honey/bumble bee than to a bee=wasp.

You're a better controller of yankspeak than I, Damien. Prior to
seeing some of the responses to my post, I had no idea that there
truly were native speakers of any variety of English who considered
the distinction between _bee_ and _wasp_ to be empty of content. When
I noticed that cartoon characters didn't make the distinction, I
thought that it was a mere WTF? Who expects that an animated cartoon
is necessarily going to be mappable onto reality?

And, while I'm at it, what's up with the anti-sexism monitors who say
nothing about the fact that male bees - rightly known as "drones" -
wasps, ants, etc., which do nothing beyond the insemination of the
queen, are routinely given all of the credit that should redound to
the females of the species?

I once had a roommate who didn't see any reason to distinguish between
ants and newly-hatched cockroaches. Well, he had a point, I reckon. No
one wants to share an abode with either of these pests. So, what does
it matter?

--
-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

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