Wed, 31 Aug 2005

Domestic pets

When I looked at the definition for "cockroach" in dict.org, I thought I found an entry that was either meant to be a bad joke by one of the WordNet database authors or some kind of easter egg in the dict web interface. It took me three reads to realise my error.

I really, absolutely dislike cockroaches. The thought of having them as my domestic pets made me feel ill.

22:12 | [] | # | (comments: 6)

It says domestic "pests" not "pets"

That extra 's' makes a bit of a difference in meaning.

Posted by anonymous at Wed Aug 31 23:02:47 2005

Actually, it reads some are domestic pests... Much better that way, isn't it ?

Posted by bertrand at Wed Aug 31 23:02:49 2005

heh, yeah. It took me like 3 reads to realise, and I was completely puzzled.

Posted by jordi at Wed Aug 31 23:06:42 2005

take a look at that url, the search result for "pest" on the same site. pest and pet are entirely different words.

<a href="http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict?Form=Dict2&Database=*&Query=pest">http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict?Form=Dict2&Database=*&Query=pest</a>

Posted by anonymous at Thu Sep 1 13:59:41 2005

otoh, there is a species of cockroaches that are popular pets:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_hissing_cockroach

Best regards,
  Zeno

Posted by Zeno Gantner at Thu Sep 1 14:33:50 2005

Aww, Zeno!

Ok, that cockroach isn't as disgusting as ours, but still, I don't think I'd have that one as a pet or pest. :)

Posted by jordi at Thu Sep 1 19:29:44 2005