France issues moratorium on prion research after fatal brain disease strikes

Re:France issues moratorium on prion research after fatal br... by jamespwilliams on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @09:49AM (#27983699)

The word "prion" is actually a contraction of the words "protein" and "infection". (edit: although I agree it's not what one might conventionally think of as an "infection")

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Re:France issues moratorium on prion research after fatal br... by knicholes on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @10:18AM (#27984058)

Contraction or portmanteau?

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Re:France issues moratorium on prion research after fatal br... by pygy_ on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @02:33PM (#27987710)

Contraction :

A portmanteau word is similar to a contraction, but contractions are formed from words that would otherwise appear together in sequence, such as do and not to make don't, whereas a portmanteau is formed by combining two or more existing words that all relate to a single concept.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portmanteau

"Motel" and "fog" are portmanteaus, because you wouldn't put "motor hotel" or "smoke fog" in sentences that accept the accretions, whereas you could swap "prion" for "protein infection".

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Re:France issues moratorium on prion research after fatal br... by JohnBooty on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @03:50PM (#27988872)

typo -

    "Motel" and "fog" are portmanteaus, because you 
    wouldn't put "motor hotel" or "smoke fog"

s/b

    "Motel" and "smog" are portmanteaus, because you 
    wouldn't put "motor hotel" or "smoke fog"

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Re:France issues moratorium on prion research after fatal br... by fabiospampinato on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @11:04AM (#27984668)

What things are named and what they are don't necessarily coincide. E.g.: native americans are called "indians".

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Re:France issues moratorium on prion research after fatal br... by jjk166 on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @11:46AM (#27985186)

But typically they do, and this is one of that vast majority of cases.

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Re:France issues moratorium on prion research after fatal br... by ben_w on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @11:23AM (#27984900)

A better etymological example would be that Stonehenge, after which the category “henge” is named, isn’t a henge.

(Aside from actual domain experts in this thread saying it is an infection, that is).

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Re:France issues moratorium on prion research after fatal br... by ekianjo on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @09:52AM (#27983729)

I know, but it's a poor choice of word since it's nothing like viruses or bacteria.

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Re:France issues moratorium on prion research after fatal br... by nkmnz on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @09:57AM (#27983785)

Viruses are nothing like bacteria, so it doesn’t make any sense to restrict the term of “infection” to those two.

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Re:France issues moratorium on prion research after fatal br... by Asraelite on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @03:16PM (#27988363)

It is interesting though that we don't consider things like lead and radiation to be "infections".

Is the difference between an infection and poisoning replication?

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Re:France issues moratorium on prion research after fatal br... by Enginerrrd on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @05:14PM (#27989802)

I'd say so.

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