>> Nobody worries for one second about saying things like "Word
>> misunderstood what I told it to do". Because very few people are stupid
>> enough to believe that a computer program like Word actually
>> "understands" anything. Similarly, our language is full of such
>> short-cuts, who's meaning is obvious. The only reason we're having this
>> conversation is that a few nutcases want to pretend that their invisible
>> friend made the universe. Well, that's their problem.
>
> There is no need to be rude and offensive.

I wasn't aware that I was. I'm just exasperated that I asked a simple 
question who's meaning is obvious, and yet people are splitting hairs 
over semantic quibbles. (Which I guess just means that nobody actually 
knows the answer... which is cool, I guess.)

> You said:
> “I'm just wondering whether fungi deliberately manufacture substances…”
> Then
> “(Which is /obviously/ what I asked in the first place, to anybody who
> actually understands how evolution works.)”
>
> You have had several people telling you that your choice of words, in
> this matter, is imprecise and does not make any real sense. Believe them
> before you make a bigger fool of yourself than is necessary.
> Except when people breed things for specific traits, nothing in the
> animal kingdom is designed. Evolution is random, you are
> anthropomorphising.

And when I say "it's raining cats and dogs here", I don't /literally/ 
mean that small quadrupedal carnivorous mammals are accelerating towards 
the surface of the Earth due to the local spacetime deformations caused 
by the Earth's immense mass. What I *actually* mean is that we're 
experiencing copious quantities aqueous precipitation in the lower 
troposphere.

People do this ALL THE TIME. Our language is full of phrases that don't 
/literally/ mean what they say, or that say one thing which is really an 
imprecise summary of a much more complicated idea, but everybody 
understands what that idea is so it's fine.

And if that makes me an idiot... well, I guess I'll go sit quietly in 
the corner. I'm almost sorry I even asked.

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