do we really need these both tags? they are literally same thing except talons is restricted to avians. i would have made a proper suggestion but i cant for some reason.

Mutisija said:
do we really need these both tags? they are literally same thing except talons is restricted to avians. i would have made a proper suggestion but i cant for some reason.

爪. Except this is an English site, so...

Claws might work; Wikipedia redirects talons -> claws.
I'm not sure if this alias is necessary though because they are sorta different: talons grab and claws scratch. But if we're going to alias them, I'd go with claws.

You couldn't suggest it because the singular tags are both aliased to the plural versions. In other words, the system is designed to consider talon -> talons -> claws invalid.

Talons are distinct because they can actually grip onto things (unlike the claws found in cat paws for instance). They tend to look and function more like fingers without resorting to looking like human-like hands like other types of claws. It's interesting how dragon claws tend to be drawn more like talons but are rarely considered talons (in everyday speech).

Tagging-wise they seem to be used for avians, reptiles, dragons, and randomly on other posts like post #209807 and post #504851 (which probably shouldn't have either). I know that talon in French refer to "heels" as in talon haut (high heel) and the heel in feet, but after a brief look through the posts it doesn't seem like there is any language confusion going on. I don't know about other languages though.

It's worth noting that searching talons on wikipedia brings up the "claw" article. Etymology-wise we're basically looking at Old English "clawu" (meaning claw) and Old French/Latin "talus" meaning ankle/heel. It's worth mentioning this because most of these "close-but-not-exactly a synonyms" discussions tend to basically end with "this is the French word for this and that's the Greek word for this" which can tell you a lot more about usage than trying to guess it, since it helps to put it in more of a historical context (at least that's how I feel about it).

I don't think aliasing it is necessary... however it may actually be worth considering an implication. The only issue I can see is the "talon" tends to refer to the whole "hand" (really foot) while "claw" tends to refer to the sharp nail. I could easily think of cases where you would infer that they are talons without actually being able to see the nail.

Huh. So Zangoose and Absol's claws are actually talons?

I think an implication would be a better idea, personally. A talon is a type of claw, but they're not the same thing

Durandal said:
I think an implication would be a better idea, personally. A talon is a type of claw, but they're not the same thing

+1 to implication