Ontherivet77 wrote:Cyril Haearn wrote:Both are true
Pets and pests
Alternative facts welcome
A friend of mine is a pest controller and he puts down poison and shoots genuine pests in the locale. If you are saying that dogs enter that category then I feel sorry for you.
There are degrees of peskiness, with corresponding degrees in appropriate responses. The nomenclatures of English can be pestilential themselves, as words vary so much in meaning depending on the word-user and the context in which the words are used.
For example, I try to be a pest in a certain cycling forum, to those notions put forth that seem to need worrying-at. It would be over-the-top (I hope) for the UC or some other utterer of a nogged-notion to have me exterminated for pestering their meme with a mock-nibble or even a bit of scorn-micturate down their meme-trousers!
On the other hand, should I go about in the real world driving my lethal four-wheeled weapon at innocents, perhaps I should be put-down before I create a serious carnage? Happily I drive very carefully indeed, not so much out of fear of being put-down (motoring crimes are no longer crimes but merely understandable faux pas) but because I am nice and would feel very bad indeed should I crush someone, or even just cause them to cycle into a hedge.
Cugel
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes