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Just so there's no confusion
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2026
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This is why I say a much more interesting question is what came first, the chicken or the chicken egg?
It entirely depends on your definition of a chicken egg. Is a chicken egg an egg that hatches a chicken, or an egg that is laid by a chicken? If it is an egg that hatches a chicken then the chicken egg came first, but if it is an egg that is laid by a chicken then the chicken came first
That's a language-dependent ambiguity; this sort of "noun¹ noun²" construction in English is actually rather vague, and it can be used multiple ways:
As such I believe that in at least some languages it's probably clear if you refer to chicken egg as "an egg coming from a chicken" or "an egg a chicken is born from". Not that they're going to use it with this expression though.
For reference. @cuerdo@lemmy.world used as an example "my penis":
In Nahuatl both would be distinguished: you'd call your genitals "notepollo" (inalienable possession), and the one you bought "notepol" (alienable possession). (Note: "no-" for the first person. For someone else's dick use "mo-" when speaking with the person, i- when talking about them.)
Just language things, I guess.
TIL I learned to refer to my penises (both of them) in Nahuatl, Thank you!!!
Relevant to note I don't speak Nahuatl. I parsed this info from Wiktionary + Wikipedia, it's surprisingly easy to follow.
(For the non-possessed form, as in "a penis is an organ", use "tepolli" instead. Wiktionary also mentions "tototl" bird being used with that meaning, kind of like English "cock".)
You cannot have a chicken without a chicken egg. And the egg comes first.
It's the paradox of the heap
At some point the pre-chicken will lay a chicken egg and a chicken will be born
If a chicken egg is an egg that hatches into a chicken, then unfertilized chicken eggs would not be chicken eggs. But if you took an alligator egg and transplanted a developing chicken embryo into it, that would become a chicken egg.
You'd get the heuristic "All chickens have hatched from chicken eggs", which sounds pretty elegant.
If a chicken egg is an egg laid by a chicken, then you couldn't reliably say that a chicken egg hatches into a chicken - the heuristic from before would become "Not all chickens have hatched from chicken eggs". And that one, while it feels a bit imprecise, might be closer to what we observe in reality, especially with that Proto-chicken argument. So the Proto-chicken would have laid a Proto-chicken egg, which hatched into a chicken, which laid chicken eggs.
And it would work with the current scientific hijinks like hatching chickens from different eggs or straight from test tubes.
If I say "my penis", it is likelier that I am talking about the one attached to me rather than the one I bought in the market.
I will opt for the Minecraft spawn egg logic. The chicken spawn egg was first.
What came first, the oak tree or the acorn?