Board 8 > Are soda, water, and beer edible?

(+) Yeah! (+)

paperwarior posted...

Eating breakfast colloquially just means that you had breakfast, though

Edible means something you can eat or something you can drink colloquially because no one says potable.

I'll accept that on edible. I just draw the line at drinking being eating.

Was never my main point to begin with

I will say I think drinking is technically eating just as I think potable things are technically edible (due to subset logic stuff)

But colloquially we don't say "eat" to describe things that we drink (because both eat and drink are common words and drink is more descriptive) but do say "edible" to describe things potable (potable is not in the lexicon of most people due to not being something people need to say much and so it's easier to just say the less descriptive word as it's still correct)

So in a way I agree with you. I just think you're thinking more colloquially than you think you are in general.

Yeah, colloquial language is the core of the discussion here. There's no need to bring in dictionary definitions, and I don't think I've ever heard "potable" for anything but safe drinking water.

potable water always make me think of toilet water

The funny thing is Im normally the technically but person in the group but this where they suddenly got all precise.

There was another one for a soccer ball. They asked if it was circular. I said yes because thats what youd expect someone to say. Technically speaking, as a three dimensional object, youd say its spherical not circular. But Im not gonna be a weirdo about it.

All spheres are circular.

I hear "drinkable" more than potable and definitely more than edible for drinks. Slightly different meaning though because typically if something isn't drinkable it just means it's gross, not that it'll poison you or isn't a liquid.

Lopen posted...

but do say "edible" to describe things potable

I have never in my life heard someone describe a drink as edible until this topic

I don't exactly hear potable often either. I guess the most common thing would be "safe to drink" or something

Seanchan posted...

There was another one for a soccer ball. They asked if it was circular. I said yes because thats what youd expect someone to say. Technically speaking, as a three dimensional object, youd say its spherical not circular. But Im not gonna be a weirdo about it.

It's also an icosahedron, not a sphere. Also nothing in reality is perfect enough to actually be a sphere.

MZero posted...

I have never in my life heard someone describe a drink as edible until this topic

I don't exactly hear potable often either. I guess the most common thing would be "safe to drink" or something

It's not exactly going to come up often with either word but if someone said "this is inedible" to describe a foul drink would you correct them? I wouldn't.

Forceful_Dragon posted...

Exactly. The similar word for a liquid is "potable"

^

Haste_2 posted...

Interesting. I was thinking of posting a poll of "do you eat soup or do you drink it?" just earlier today.... (oh, wait, this was posted last night)

You drink soup in Mandarin Chinese.

In English, you eat soup if there's a spoon. You drink soup if you lift the bowl to your mouth directly. I'm pretty sure everyone agrees with this except for ESL people and people who just want to argue.

Lopen posted...

It's not exactly going to come up often with either word but if someone said "this is inedible" to describe a foul drink would you correct them? I wouldn't.

I'd probably just let it go because it's obvious what they meant but it would sound weird

They're potable instead of edible.