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Venom vs Poison (mander.xyz)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 76 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (5 children)

In german there is only one word for it, which is a gift for german speakers.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 3 months ago

I'd take poisonous/venomous over German grammar.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago

Literally Gift or giftig.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Same in Spanish. Veneno for both posion/venom.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The fact that we're having this discussion at all kind of proves that either English is losing the distinction, or it was never as clear a distinction as people sometimes make it out to be. Either way I'm fine with it because it doesn't seem like a very useful distinction to make in everyday language, and you can sidestep it entirely by using a word like toxic instead.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

We say poison tipped arrows, not venom tipped arrows, so there's at least one example of the words being interchangeable.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Nah, if I remember right, those arrows use the poison from a tree frog's skin, not something like a snake's venom. So still poison!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Same in Norway with "gift". Also, the same word is used for "married".