• Soviet Snake@lemmygrad.ml
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    1 year ago

    It makes no sense to have a word for that if you ask me, they are fingers, what’s the difference, you need to remember an extra word for it, it’s memory space wasted by something ridiculous imo.

    • happybadger [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      They serve different functions. Toes are for balance and stability, fingers grasp and lift. Transplanting one to the other technically works but not well enough to be practical. If I had an ambulance call that someone had broken their fingers I’d expect them to be able to walk while breaking their toes means a gurney. I’d get not differentiating between ring finger/index finger/middle finger and I don’t think there are common English words for the middle toes, but fingers/toes are very different to me.

      • Soviet Snake@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        Well, no one would say ‘My fingers are broken’ meaning their toes in Spanish, you would say 'The foot’s fingers are broken" or ‘I’ve hurt my foot’ and then specify what’s happened. They are different things alright, that’s why one is a compound word and the other isn’t.

        I found a worse offence that English uses ‘the day before yesterday’ instead of a word, in Spanish we have ‘antier’ or ‘anteayer’.