In article
<3e418116-9f87-4f0b-b2e7-60572e2f9315@e53g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>,
Peach <strawberry@lpbroadband.net> wrote:
> On Jul 18, 12:56 pm, "Suzanne D." <sdall...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > "Peach" <strawbe...@lpbroadband.net> wrote in message
> >
> > news:5263922e-62f0-4764-afa8->Did you know there are two types of arachnids
> > that have the long
> >
> > legs?
> >
> > Yes I know. I studied archeology as a child. We have spiders.
> > --S.
>
> Then don't call them daddy long legs. It's a misnomer.
It's only a misnomer for the female ones and the males who haven't yet
fathered any children. Without knowing their gender and parenting
history, you can't really know for sure that they aren't "daddies".
And they all do certainly have long-legs!
(A real misnomer is something like Guinea pig, which is not a pig and
isn't from Guinea.)
Perhaps what you meant is that it's ambiguous (since multiple
creatures are called by that name)? That's hardly anything new in how
we name animals and plants: sparrow (ambiguous between two different
families of birds), periwinkle (ambiguous between a type of sea snail
and two separate genera of flowers), oak (ambiguous among hundreds of
different species), etc.
Nathan
