What if I told you that words can have different meanings in different contexts? Just because the same word can be used to refer to different things depending on whether its used in everyday or scientific speech doesn’t mean either usage is “wrong”.
Doesn’t change that it was a bad idea to borrow a generic term for small sweet fruits to refer to a specific botanical feature. Not just bad, but completely unnecessary and frankly, simply, a bit stupid.
Well, no, there’s nothing wrong with the definition of berry, but there would be something wrong about a botanist being annoyed with someone using the colloquial definition of berry.
Pretty sure botanists are aware that the same word can have different meaning outside of their scientific field. The people actually bothered by this are pedants who read about it on the internet, not people who studied botany.
It’s like what I say to bother botanists:
What if I told you that words can have different meanings in different contexts? Just because the same word can be used to refer to different things depending on whether its used in everyday or scientific speech doesn’t mean either usage is “wrong”.
Doesn’t change that it was a bad idea to borrow a generic term for small sweet fruits to refer to a specific botanical feature. Not just bad, but completely unnecessary and frankly, simply, a bit stupid.
Well, no, there’s nothing wrong with the definition of berry, but there would be something wrong about a botanist being annoyed with someone using the colloquial definition of berry.
Pretty sure botanists are aware that the same word can have different meaning outside of their scientific field. The people actually bothered by this are pedants who read about it on the internet, not people who studied botany.