This threw me in a New Yorker article the other week: “Technically speaking, bugs are not synonymous with insects but are a subset of them: those which possess mouthparts that pierce and suck (as opposed to, say, caterpillars and termites, whose mouths are built, like ours, to chew).” I had no idea. I’ve sometimes told my students that they should translate 蟲 as bug if there are legs, and worm (their usual translation) only if there are no legs, but now I’m lost.
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What were you before… Foundinasia?
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