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Re:U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate o... by zarzavat on Sunday September 18, 2022 @03:02AM (#32885165)
All very true, but at the risk of laboring the point, a legal person is not a person, just like a sperm bank is not a bank. A noun phrase is not necessarily a sub-category of the original noun. This is underlined by the use of the plural “legal persons”, rather “legal people” which is usually reserved for meat sacks with law degrees.
Re:U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate o... by Kamq on Sunday September 18, 2022 @08:25AM (#32886965)
> A noun phrase is not necessarily a sub-category of the original noun.

This is actually something I had not fully considered. I had always considered odd modifiers to create a non-central example of the category, rather than creating a new category.

To take your example of a sperm bank, I had always considered that to be a kind of generalized version of a bank. A general "place you can deposit things for future use".

Do you have any other good examples? I'm gonna have to let this roll around in my head for a bit to see what the implications are.

Re:U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate o... by droidist2 on Monday September 19, 2022 @01:06PM (#32901016)
One confounding factor is that some words have multiple meanings or connotations. A "bank" doesn't have to be a financial bank. Or sometimes names can be chained together, like maybe "sperm bank" is based on "food bank" or "seed bank".
Re:U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate o... by Kamq on Monday September 19, 2022 @09:22PM (#32906486)
Alright, so I finally went and checked, and (according to merriam webster), the following definitions of "bank" are reasonably commonly used (none marked with archaic or obscure).

> a supply of something held in reserve

> a place where something is held available (especially : a depot for the collection and storage of a biological product)

Both of which fit food bank, seed bank, and sperm bank.

Which means that a sperm bank probably is properly a bank, although used without qualification, most people probably mean money bank (or are being intentionally ambiguous to avoid the stigma of needing a food bank/going to a sperm bank).