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But the question is, is a chicken egg an egg containing a chicken or an egg which was laid by a chicken?
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2025
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Yes, but is a chicken egg one that's laid by a chicken, or one that hatches the chicken? The answer to that question affects the answer to which came first
It's one that contains a chicken:
A chocolate egg is an egg that contains chocolate, not one that is laid by chocolate.
QED
Most eggs you buy in the store are unfertilized and therefore don't really contain chicken. They are still called chicken eggs. Therefore what lays the egg determines what it is called.
In all the instances I've been able to think of off the top of my head: how the egg is named depends on whether it's in a culinary/food-centric context.
When you're referring to an egg in its natural state, the egg is named for the animal that produced it, like duck egg, goose egg, etc.
When referring to an egg that has been prepared, or something that is not an actual egg from an animal, you'd refer to it based on the preparation or what the fake egg is made of, like fried egg, boiled egg, faberge egg, or chocolate egg.
I would posit that the question can't truly be answered in its current form; the question is assumed to be asking about a unaltered egg produced by a chicken, but does not explicitly state whether the egg was transformed in some way, and does not state that the egg being referred to is specifically from a chicken.
Yes I'm fun at parties and no I will not be taking questions at this time :)
Edit: Formatting
There was never any point where a non-chicken laid an egg that hatched into a chicken. Evolution doesn’t care about our categories, just as the rainbow doesn’t care about our colour words!
It's one that hatches a chicken. An egg layed by a chicken is a chicken*'s* egg. If a chicken doesn't come out of it, it ain't a chicken egg.