Flesh Fly vs. Horsefly

Hi there, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Rhonda from San Diego.

Hi, Rhonda.

Welcome to the show. What can we do for you?

We have flies come in our house every so often.

Flies?

And flies, you know, they sneak in from outside when the kids go in and out.

So like a house fly.

But there was a really large one that came in our house one day.

But it was a specific type of fly because I looked it up.

But my husband said, oh, there’s a horse fly.

I said, that is not a horsefly.

It’s a fleshfly, because I looked it up.

He says, no, it’s a horsefly.

I can call it a horsefly, and because I choose to and my family calls it a horsefly, it can be a horsefly.

I said, no, if we know the name, we need to call it by its regular name.

So we decided we needed to call you and let us know if our discussion was appropriate or not.

Okay, this is a good question.

So a fly came to the house.

He called it a horsefly.

Did he know that it was actually a fleshfly?

He knew that it was a larger fly than some of the smaller housefly types.

Right.

What’s a fleshfly?

I don’t know if everybody’s seen them, depending on where you are in the world.

But they’re larger than the normal little green-bodied houseflies we have here in Southern California.

And they have gray-striped bodies and red eyes.

They’re much larger and louder.

Okay.

And Rhonda, do you relate to horse flies and flesh flies differently?

I do.

So I come from like a biology and animal husbandry background.

And so I very much like in college working with farm animals know what a horse fly is because they are giant and they bite.

So for him to call this still kind of a house fly, a horse fly, I was like, no way, Jose.

That is not a horse fly.

So you’ve got this level of expertise that he wasn’t respecting.

Yes.

Okay, and it makes a difference because if it were a horsefly, you would want to avoid it because it might bite you?

Oh, definitely, definitely, and they hurt.

But the fleshflies, they only go after dead animals or open wounds, right?

Right, right. They eat dead things.

Dead things, yeah.

Okay, so did he want to stick to his guns just because he didn’t like being told what to do and what to say?

It may have been partially that.

I don’t know.

He even brought it up again when we were discussing this.

So that’s why we were like, we need to call Grant and Martha.

Here’s where we are.

Oh, it’s a little complicated.

The simple fact is, if you know the name of it, you call the name of it.

But I’m going to give him a little tiny out.

Martha, what do you think?

You know what? I think I call any large fly a horsefly, sort of like I call any large pill a horse pill.

Just like I call any dog a pup or a pupper.

Yeah. So I don’t know that I would feel that strongly about it.

I mean, I’m learning about flesh flies as we speak.

Okay. Okay.

Now, I grew up part of my childhood in the country and knew something about horse flies coming into this conversation.

Flesh flies I only know from reading, I think maybe the James Harriot books about the veterinarians in Yorkshire and the UK.

But they call them different things there.

But I’m thinking about this and I’m thinking if you know a term that’s specific and somebody else has kind of nudged you in the right direction, why not go for it?

And another thing I’m thinking is why die on this hill?

Yeah, I was wondering about that one.

Save it for the big issue.

And the third thing I’m thinking, though, is linguistic or actually lexical.

These common names for creatures really tend to be very broad.

There are a lot of different critters that get the name housefly.

Most of them are under one family, but there are a lot of different kinds of horsefly.

Just like there are a lot of different kinds of fleshfly, most of them under one family.

But they refer to a lot of different kinds of animals.

So I’m just thinking about how broad a term horsefly can be to refer to a lot of different critters of a lot of different sizes and colors and descriptions.

Yeah.

Have you all thought about using the scientific names for these insects?

Right.

That’s what he brought up.

He’s like, but you don’t use the Latin for it, Rhonda.

Yeah, right.

How dare you?

But you’re saying we know what it is, so why not call it what it is?

Right.

And just especially since we have young children, I want them to know the right thing.

Like, I come from animal care.

I want them to understand what the different creatures are.

So if we know what it is, let’s call it what it is.

Fleshfly is kind of gross to say.

It is.

Yeah.

But it’s kind of fun, too.

I think overall here, I’m thinking once you let him know that there was a better term for it and you reminded him there was a better term for it, he should have just gone with the easy answers.

Oh, yeah, fleshfly.

And then you all kind of moved on and had your day.

Yeah, and taught your kids that.

That’s right.

You should listen and learn and move on, right?

But save the energy, save the fighting energy for something else bigger later.

Something more important.

That family fighting energy has to be conserved for real issues.

I don’t know.

Maybe they should die on that particular hill and forget the other.

Well, it’s true.

Sometimes we have these small proxies like who gets the newspaper first on Sundays, right?

We fight over that instead of the real big thing.

Like who’s going to be responsible for taking the car in for repair?

So, Rhonda, have we satisfied you?

I think so.

I think I’ve heard that he should have listened to me.

We hear what we want.

No, but that’s true.

I think he should have.

I think he should have used the specific term anyway if he knew it.

And then when you gave him, reminded him of the better term, he probably should have latched onto it.

Yes.

But anyway, thank you for chatting it out with me.

Take care now.

Bye.

Bye, Rhonda.

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