[sandworm101]

The whale=fish thing is also an old joke about catholics. Back when one could not eat meat on fridays, all sorts of water-living mamals were declared to be "fish" for purposes of eating. So a new world protestant author in the 1800s is pointing a critical finger at oldworld religion and science.

We have lost knowledge of such nuance, like rewatching MASH or Trek and missing the religious and racial messages that made them so controversial then but banal today.

[shakna]

Afraid not.

In 1760, The Natural and Civil History of the French Dominions in North and South America did absolutely claim that there was some papal decree that otter tail was fish, and beaver was fish, and so on.

But... There's no actual Papal decree, bull, or otherwise in canon law that anyone can find. It's just a good story, not a true one.

[sandworm101]

Which doesnt matter. What maters is whether melville thought it to be true when he wrote the line. The joke/reference would have been understood by readers at the time regardless of whether it was factually true.

2010. Archibishop of New Orleans. Alligator is "fish". Whether or not the pope has an opinion, such things are not fiction.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/03/27/175058833/fo...

[thaumasiotes]

> Back when one could not eat meat on fridays, all sorts of water-living mamals were declared to be "fish" for purposes of eating.

Like what, seals? Otters?

Something tells me that otters were never passed off as "fish".

[robwwilliams]

Capybaras in Brazil were Friday fish.