Poison vs Venom vs Toxin
By
Arcanaville,
Posted on: 2011-09-12 24:56 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
And a THANK YOU to GM PulpyOrange for contacting us back about this =)
poi·son
noun 1. a substance with an inherent property that tends to destroy life or impair health.
Sounds like the right use to me.
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Just for more hilarity...
Venom
noun : poisonous matter normally secreted by some animals (as snakes, scorpions, or bees) and transmitted to prey or an enemy chiefly by biting or stinging; broadly : material that is poisonous
Remember, if you're in a specific field of study, your jargon will be different than the common vernacular (hence it being jargon)! One's not right and the other wrong... it's that there's special rules and the need for such.
And as you mentioned GM... it sounds like you /petitioned this in game? You should use /bug for text errors and the like, that goes to the bug DB instead of a totally unrelated group in NCSoft (GMs will often just say to go to the boards for things they can't do squat about).
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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Poison and venom both imply inherent delivery systems.
EG: spines. Inject poison? Incorrect. Venom is injected.
Poison, toxin, venom are terms for any substance that injures the health or destroys life when absorbed into the system, especially of a higher animal. (dictonary.com)
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Above quoted from http://www.preservevenomous.com/Veno..._Vs_Poison.htm| There is a difference between organisms that are venomous and those that are poisonous, two commonly confused terms applied to plant and animal life. Venomous, as stated above, refers to animals that deliver (often, inject) venom into their prey when hunting or as a defense mechanism. Poisonous, on the other hand, describes plants or animals that are harmful when consumed or touched. A poison tends to be distributed over a large part of the body of the organism producing it, while venom is typically produced in organs specialized for the purpose. One species of bird, the hooded pitohui, although not venomous, is poisonous, secreting a neurotoxin onto its skin and feathers. The slow loris, a primate, blurs the boundary between poisonous and venomous. |
I think the wording in some cases on these powersets is muddy and could be cleaned up a bit.
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Poisonous is an adjective that implies toxicity. If the word 'poison' were changed to 'poisonous' then there would be no inherent conflict. The issue lies with "injects a poison"...could be easily re-written to 'poisonous substance' or 'toxic substance' and eliminate any issue.
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Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
Just for more hilarity...
Venom noun : poisonous matter normally secreted by some animals (as snakes, scorpions, or bees) and transmitted to prey or an enemy chiefly by biting or stinging; broadly : material that is poisonous Remember, if you're in a specific field of study, your jargon will be different than the common vernacular (hence it being jargon)! One's not right and the other wrong... it's that there's special rules and the need for such. And as you mentioned GM... it sounds like you /petitioned this in game? You should use /bug for text errors and the like, that goes to the bug DB instead of a totally unrelated group in NCSoft (GMs will often just say to go to the boards for things they can't do squat about). |
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I see no issue if you understand this isn't a biology lab. There's no reason to use field-specific jargon when the standard dictionaries define the words much broader. Dechs Kaison already posted this, but since it seems to have been overlooked... poison.|
Originally Posted by _darque_
Poisonous is an adjective that implies toxicity. If the word 'poison' were changed to 'poisonous' then there would be no inherent conflict. The issue lies with "injects a poison"...could be easily re-written to 'poisonous substance' or 'toxic substance' and eliminate any issue.
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Quite frankly, there's far, far, far, far, far worse text errors (even if your claim was right), such as flat out misspellings ('moe' for 'more'), using the wrong word, and many other things.
You're also limiting yourself to biology. Humans have long since used those things in creative and different ways that would violate your definition (unless the substance magically transforms into a different things based on its usage).
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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Dictionaries provide simple definitions of words. They don't commonly point out differences between similar words, even when the differences are well known.
"Poisoning someone with venom" should sound off to any American English speaker with a standard K-12 education. "Poison" vs. "venom" is no more jargon than other pairs of subtly different common words, such as "recite" vs. "repeat".
Perhaps the distinction between "antidote" and "antivenom" is clearer?
so.... in a VIDEO GAME, where you pretend to be a SUPERHERO, fly/super speed/teleport around a city full of energy barrier war walls due to the INTER-DIMENSIONAL ALIENS invasion, where it is quite common to be wearing your underwear on the outside of your spandex... you have a problem with the usage of venom/poison/toxin?
really?
Oh yeah, that was the time that girl got her whatchamacallit stuck in that guys dooblickitz and then what his name did that thing with the lizards and it cleared right up.
screw your joke, i want "FREEM"
An in-universe character can misuse and abuse words all she likes, within her own dialogue. It's out-of-universe text that must conform to standard use.
For instance, if Praetorian Penelope Yin asks your character, in-universe, if one of his powers is Super Hopping, that's OK. If the game interface, which is out-of-universe, lists your power as Super Hopping, well, now we have a problem. One is a slightly cuckoo character speaking in-universe to your character. The other is the devs speaking directly to you, the player.
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Originally Posted by Rigel_Kent
An in-universe character can misuse and abuse words all she likes, within her own dialogue. It's out-of-universe text that must conform to standard use.
For instance, if Praetorian Penelope Yin asks your character, in-universe, if one of his powers is Super Hopping, that's OK. If the game interface, which is out-of-universe, lists your power as Super Hopping, well, now we have a problem. One is a slightly cuckoo character speaking in-universe to your character. The other is the devs speaking directly to you, the player. |
sorry, i disagree, the fact that we have all chosen this game is an unspoken contract to suspend reality in regards to this game... not only while logged in.
ever seen the movie independence day? one part bugged the living **** out of me. Randy Quaid starts the movie saying he was abducted by aliens, and everyone thinks he's a drunken loon. aliens show up, giant ships cover every major city, humans face possible extinction, and they still think he's a loon for thinking he was abducted... at some point, you just gotta go with it.
Oh yeah, that was the time that girl got her whatchamacallit stuck in that guys dooblickitz and then what his name did that thing with the lizards and it cleared right up.
screw your joke, i want "FREEM"
The difference between poison and venom is quite clear. One is a pink-haired MTF, the other is a super villain.
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[thread derail]|
Originally Posted by Traegus
ever seen the movie independence day? one part bugged the living **** out of me. Randy Quaid starts the movie saying he was abducted by aliens, and everyone thinks he's a drunken loon. aliens show up, giant ships cover every major city, humans face possible extinction, and they still think he's a loon for thinking he was abducted... at some point, you just gotta go with it.
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The way I like to interpret that movie, he was a loon. Those aliens would never return someone to Earth in perfect physical health after abducting them. They'd vivisect any abductee to see how they worked, then dispose of the remains in whatever way seemed most expedient. I find it amusing to think he was never abducted, but once real aliens showed up he just seamlessly worked them into his delusions.
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From the latest patch notes:|
Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
And as you mentioned GM... it sounds like you /petitioned this in game? You should use /bug for text errors and the like, that goes to the bug DB instead of a totally unrelated group in NCSoft (GMs will often just say to go to the boards for things they can't do squat about).
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| /bug should no longer bring up the /petition window by default. |
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As a certified networking specialist (CCNA if you care), I was sitting in on a computer concepts class at the local community college when they were talking about networking. Those poor students were required to remember the definition of "network," which was something along the lines of "all of the interconnected computing devices under a single administration."|
Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
Remember, if you're in a specific field of study, your jargon will be different than the common vernacular (hence it being jargon)! One's not right and the other wrong... it's that there's special rules and the need for such.
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"Network" as a technical term describes a data-link broadcast domain. You use switches to expand a network, and you use routers to connect networks. That is to say, if you "have a router in your network," you actually manage more than one network. All of the interconnected computing devices under a single administration can be called whatever you want it to be called, but if it's connected to the internet, they call it an autonomous system.
Furthermore, that box in the garage between your home "network" and the internet is not a router. It's a bridge with a switch attached. Bonus points for being a wireless access point and/or DHCP server.
So next time you talk about how you "have a router in your network," consider that you might just have a bridge on the edge of your broadcast domain.
Not sure why I'm even getting into this but if you put snake venom in a drink or something, wouldnt you be "poisoning someone with a venom"?
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Originally Posted by Jot
Not sure why I'm even getting into this but if you put snake venom in a drink or something, wouldnt you be "poisoning someone with a venom"?
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That's probably Cisco training jargon. That's not the standard use of the term "network" as its generally used professionally. At least, that hasn't been my experience. Remember that the term "network" even in the specific field of computers predates "broadcast domains" and not all networking technologies have any sense of a broadcast domain. If the term "network" was ever defined to be "broadcast domain" there would be no token ring networks, no fddi networks, no frame relay networks. ARPANET would not be a network, nor would ATM.|
Originally Posted by GuyPerfect
As a certified networking specialist (CCNA if you care), I was sitting in on a computer concepts class at the local community college when they were talking about networking. Those poor students were required to remember the definition of "network," which was something along the lines of "all of the interconnected computing devices under a single administration."
"Network" as a technical term describes a data-link broadcast domain. You use switches to expand a network, and you use routers to connect networks. That is to say, if you "have a router in your network," you actually manage more than one network. All of the interconnected computing devices under a single administration can be called whatever you want it to be called, but if it's connected to the internet, they call it an autonomous system. Furthermore, that box in the garage between your home "network" and the internet is not a router. It's a bridge with a switch attached. Bonus points for being a wireless access point and/or DHCP server. So next time you talk about how you "have a router in your network," consider that you might just have a bridge on the edge of your broadcast domain. |
As to the internet access device in people's homes, if its a cable modem its technically not a bridge in the original sense although it acts like one in the modern sense. Both DSL modems and cable modems perform transport translation which means some people will call them translational bridges and some would call them modems for disambiguation.
However, if it has a Wifi access point or offers DHCP, its definitely not a bridge, or rather its not exclusively a bridge. In that case, it is a single device with a bridge/modem to the internet and a router/NAT connecting to the modem on one side and the internal and wifi address space on the other side(s) of the router.
Usually, this is just terminology: distinctions without much difference in a practical sense. The one that is dying out but used to be highly significant is the "10/100 hub." There is no such thing as a 10/100 hub. "Hub" implies standard ethernet as opposed to a switch, and by definition its impossible for a single ethernet hub to operate at two different speeds. All 10/100 hubs were either 10/100 switches that lied about being hubs, or single boxes with a 10 meg hub and a 100 meg hub connected inside with a 10/100 switch. This was not a mere distinction without a difference, because in the old days we used to use hubs to monitor network traffic at control points in the days before mirror ports on switches. A 10/100 hub was two hubs connected via switch internally, which meant 10 meg linked sniffers could not see the 100 meg linked traffic and vice versa. This used to cause all manner of pain at times.
Jargon is a funny thing because even in a technical field like networking, there's a lot of politics involved. For example, when ethernet switches started to arrive on the scene, Cisco did a lot of road shows basically saying "switches are not ethernet." Technically correct, because ethernet was defined originally in terms of CSMA/CD, and switches obviously were not. And this was because switches were able to replace routers in some situations where routers were being used to reduce the size of the broadcast domain to reduce unicast collisions. Switches cut into Cisco's action. To this day I believe Cisco still calls "layer 3 switches" just a fancy name for "fast router" as a legacy to their pre-Catalyst pre-switch days of being an all router shop.
Speaking of jargon, be careful about calling generic things autonomous systems on the internet. The definition you give above is the descriptive colloquial definition. The technical definition of an autonomous system on the internet is the set of networks operating under a single ASN. If it doesn't have a single ASN, its not an AS, period.
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Snake venom isn't generally very toxic when ingested. It's basically just a protein that your digestive system will break down. Now, it could cause problems if it entered your blood stream through, say, an ulcer, but you should be more or less fine if you drank the snake venom otherwise.|
Originally Posted by Jot
Not sure why I'm even getting into this but if you put snake venom in a drink or something, wouldn't you be "poisoning someone with a venom"?
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In fact, in northern Vietnam a delicacy is eating cobra, freshly killed. This sometimes is followed up with alcohol spiked with cobra venom and fresh blood.
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I'm using the OSI definition, which funnily enough happens to say something to the effect of "the Network layer of the network model is about how networks communicate." You may not encounter many people who identify that each interface on a router connects to a network or subnetwork, but then again, does anyone really know what that machine is called that Zamboni makes? (It's an "ice resurfacer," should anyone feel like being clever)|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
That's probably Cisco training jargon. That's not the standard use of the term "network" as its generally used professionally. At least, that hasn't been my experience.
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In any case, "network" used to describe chunks of a system separated by routing is quite common among those who design and maintain those systems, and the students I was observing were being fed quite a contradictory definition. To me, it's equivalent to saying food comes in tin cans, when they're in fact usually steel. It makes a significant difference should someone need to decide what to make a can out of at some point.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
However, if it has a Wifi access point or offers DHCP, its definitely not a bridge, or rather its not exclusively a bridge. In that case, it is a single device with a bridge/modem to the internet and a router/NAT connecting to the modem on one side and the internal and wifi address space on the other side(s) of the router.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Speaking of jargon, be careful about calling generic things autonomous systems on the internet. The definition you give above is the descriptive colloquial definition. The technical definition of an autonomous system on the internet is the set of networks operating under a single ASN. If it doesn't have a single ASN, its not an AS, period.
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Whatever the case, that's not what a network is, despite people calling it that.
Um Snakes are poisonous.
They can't venom you, they can poison you. The term Poisonous is derived from the verb: to Poison, not the noun.
They poison you with venom, they don't venom you with venom.
I just wanted to pop in and add that everyone near my cube now thinks I am really psycho for laughing out loud. So thanks for the LOLs.
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Originally Posted by Giant2005
Um Snakes are poisonous.
They can't venom you, they can poison you. The term Poisonous is derived from the verb: to Poison, not the noun. They poison you with venom, they don't venom you with venom. |
Nope, QI disagrees with you. There are two poisonous snakes in the world : IE if you ate them you would be poisoned, that's what poisonous means.
Others have a venomous bite. They inject a toxin into you. That's what venomous means, the creature can inject a toxic venom into you. Bees and wasps are venomous, not poisonous.
If you disagree take it up with Stephen Fry.
I think when scientists cornered the word 'venom' they weren't too concerned about whether the substance a robot, zombie, or super hero spits is technically venom or poison. The origin and delivery methods of the substance being spit/thrown/hurled is vague. And I would argue that yes you can "poison with venom," because venom is the name of a substance, and poison a verb indicating a method of delivery, which may or may not be the standard natural or biological method native to the organism that produced the venom.
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Technically, venom (a toxin typically injected via bite or sting) is a category of toxin (a biologically produced poison) which is a category of poison. Ergo, venom is poison even though poison isn't necessarily venom.|
Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA
Nope, QI disagrees with you. There are two poisonous snakes in the world : IE if you ate them you would be poisoned, that's what poisonous means.
Others have a venomous bite. They inject a toxin into you. That's what venomous means, the creature can inject a toxic venom into you. Bees and wasps are venomous, not poisonous. If you disagree take it up with Stephen Fry. |
Similarly, an antivenom is a specific kind of antidote.
Also, while you could say that someone was poisoned with venom, I believe it would be more appropriate to simply say they were envenomated.
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Amazing how irritated I get when someone misuses the terms venom and poison. We were playing CoH/V earlier, and *name withheld* pointed out the poison set (which is almost accurate), until it says "you poison with a venom." No. You poison with a poison. Or if you need a generic, with a toxic substance. Spines set? You inject a poison? No. You inject a venom. Venom is injected via sting or bite. Poison is ingested or inhaled, absorbed through the epithelial lining. At best, you inject a poisonous substance. But not a poison.
If you're going to bring home the big bucks in game design, make sure the little details are correct.
I realize that the writers are writing for people who probably have no clue about the difference, but it's really glaring when you do know and try to wrap your head around it. Even the daughter gets a good giggle when someone calls a snake poisonous...they're not, unless they're a spitting cobra.
And both venom and poisons can be toxins....as toxin doesn't specify a method of delivery. Yes, I actually did email the game support/bug report over their wording. Wonder if they'll get back to me.