Why Humans Hate Crabs: Uncovering the Mystery

[DaveC426913]

God loves crabs so much, he is trying to make everything into crabs.

So what is it about crabs that humans hate?

The term for "convergent evolution to a crab-like form" is carcinization.
Which as the same root as carcinogen - meaning cancer.

The zodiacal symbol for the cancer sign is a crab.

Coinky-dink? Clearly, humans have got it in for crabs.

 

[Keith_McClary]

Origin of the word cancer

The disease was first called cancer by Greek physician Hippocrates (460-370 BC). He is considered the “Father of Medicine.” Hippocrates used the terms carcinos and carcinoma to describe non-ulcer forming and ulcer-forming tumors. In Greek this means a crab. The description was names after the crab because the finger-like spreading projections from a cancer called to mind the shape of a crab.

 

[phyzguy]

Once I was eating in a restaurant in Germany, and one of the items on the menu was Flusskrebs, which literally translated means river crabs, and is basically what we in America call crayfish. However, the menu also had the English translation - river cancer. Needless to say, I ordered something else.

 

[DaveC426913]

Mmmm. Gonna get me a second helping o' River Cancer.

 

[jim mcnamara]

First, I think some comments may be off base.
The greek word for crab is not cancer, it is: Κάβουρας anglicized it is "kavouras"
The latin word, cancer, is the origin of modern root word cancer, carcinXX, and so on.

What triggered this thread -xkcd?

https://xkcd.com/2418/

 

[DaveC426913]

What triggered this thread -xkcd?

Ish.

It's always "troubled" me that the zodiacal sign is called cancer.
I recently read the article about carcinization.
Now, XKCD has picked up on it.
It's become sort of a timely topic.

 

[jim mcnamara]

This paper is a review paper on the subject, which was topical for several years prior to 1997

Carcinization in the Anomura-fact or fiction? I. Evidence from adult morphology
PA McLaughlin, R Lemaitre - Contributions to Zoology, 1997 - brill.com

So it is not like this is new front page science, AFAIK.

Anomura the "sister" group to true crabs, Brachyura
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomura example: hermit crab is not a true crab in spite of its name.

 

[Keith_McClary]

latin

cancer (n.)
Old English cancer "spreading sore, malignant tumor" (also canceradl), from Latin cancer "a crab," later, "malignant tumor," from Greek karkinos, which, like the Modern English word, has three meanings: a crab, a tumor, and the zodiac constellation represented by a crab, from PIE [Proto-Indo-European] *karkro-, reduplicated form of root *kar- "hard."

Greek physicians Hippocrates and Galen, among others, noted similarity of crabs to some tumors with swollen veins. The Old English word was displaced by French-influenced doublet canker but was reintroduced in the modern medical sense c. 1600. In reference to the zodiac sign from late Old English; meaning "person born under the zodiac sign of Cancer" is from 1894. The sun being in Cancer at the summer solstice, the constellation had association in Latin writers with the south and with summer heat. Cancer stick "cigarette" is from 1959.
ONLINE ETYMOLOGY DICTIONARY

 

[f95toli]

An old word for cancer in Swedish is indeed just the Swedish word for crayfish ("Kräfta").
"Old" in this context doesn't mean hundreds of years ago; my grandmother used that word and I am pretty sure it was relatively common at least until the 1970s
(the modern word for cancer in Swedish is just "cancer")

I'm pretty sure the the words for crayfish is still commonly used for cancer in Danish and Norwegian (can anyone confirm?).,

 

[AndreasC]

First, I think some comments may be off base.
The greek word for crab is not cancer, it is: Κάβουρας anglicized it is "kavouras"
The latin word, cancer, is the origin of modern root word cancer, carcinXX, and so on.

What triggered this thread -xkcd?

https://xkcd.com/2418/

This is kinda wrong, kinda right. Yes, the modern Greek word for crab is κάβουρας, but the classical Greek word is καρκίνος (carkinos) which is what Hippocrates called the disease, and what the disease is called in Greece now, and the Latin word probably has the same root. When someone says "carcinogenic" or "carcinoma", that comes from the Greek word. So you are right that it isn't a Greek word but it is the Latin translation of the Greek term, and the Greek term wasn't kavouras back then, but karkinos (or carkinos or carcinos or whatever the latinization is supposed to be).

 

[BigDon]

The casual layman doesn't often see the sarcomas that lead to the name because those are usually very late stage and in Western medicine the tumor or limb is removed long before then. But I've seen films from Central America where a doctor was trying to validate a cancer study and he was not pleased. He said everybody used as a test subject was way too far along to prove or disprove anything, but I'll never forget the sarcoma on this poor woman's bicep. It looked exactly like a green shore crab, sans claws, was emerging from her flesh.

So this is similar to, but not the same as, reporting bias.

 

[DaveC426913]

It looked exactly like a green shore crab, sans claws, was emerging from her flesh.

Considering we're talking about how cancer looks like crabs, I am obliged to ask:

Do you mean sans all claws, or just sans the pincers?

I had this image in my head from an earlier post that a cancer lesion looks like a crab - spider-like appendages and all.

 

[BigDon]

No pincers, and only four legs, arcing from the corners.

 

[rsk]

Interesting topic. Just found this https://text.npr.org/130754101

 

[sbrothy]

First, I think some comments may be off base.
The greek word for crab is not cancer, it is: Κάβουρας anglicized it is "kavouras"
The latin word, cancer, is the origin of modern root word cancer, carcinXX, and so on.

What triggered this thread -xkcd?

https://xkcd.com/2418/

Or perhaps Scenes From a Multiverse. Re: Crab City.

Sorry. Couldn't help myself. I'll refrain from peddling and spamming in the future, ;/