"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."
Because it's a classic flamewar topic which leads away from the specifics of this story and towards generic hostilities; and because taking a stronger interpretation of the comment would have made the question unnecessary—i.e. scott_s is probably just as aware as the rest of us that fish are animals and their flesh is in that sense meat, and therefore he was probably just not using the word 'meat' in that sense.
scott_s replied in an evenhanded way, but many (maybe most) commenters in his position would have taken the question as hostile and responded in kind.
How could I better ask the question? I'm genuinely confused since they poster talks about not eating "meat" but eats fish, which culturally for me (Buddhist and Hindu) are non-veg
I don't think the poster ever actually said that fish isn't meat, and I guess a lot of people are interpreting your question as a hostile challenge of the idea of pescatarianism (along the lines of "Why don't you think that cheeseburgers are murder?").
If you are struggling to understand pescatarianism as an idea, my perspective is that flexitarianism, pescatarianism, vegetarianism, and flexiveganism are all compromise diets that get some but not all environmental and ethical benefits of veganism. Different people have different levels of commitment and make different tradeoffs in their life choices. Whether that's "the only meat I eat is fish" or "I eat fish but not meat" is just a matter of definitions.
In terms of the English word "meat", there is certainly some ambiguity. At least as I know the term, it feels like a stretch (but maybe technically correct) to count fish as meat. I've had people suggest sushi when I say that I'm vegetarian, unaware that vegetarians don't eat fish. If you google for the Food Pyramid, most diagrams call out meat and fish as different things. "Vegetarian" almost always doesn't allow fish, but "meat" just isn't a very precise word.
Just adding the information contained in your second sentence here would have been enough to ask the question better. This kind of point is one that people typically get very hostile about, very quickly, in internet discussions, so if you're going to go there, you need to differentiate your comment from flamebait.
Also, scott_s's original comment didn't say that fish isn't meat, or even imply that. In English the word "meat" didn't traditionally include fish, and that usage is more than enough to cover what he probably meant. Taking the strongest plausible interpretation, as the guidelines request, makes the question unnecessary.
You're getting downvoted, but I don't think everyone realizes this can be a genuine point of confusion.
"Meat", like many words, has multiple senses. One of them is the flesh of any animal. Another is the flesh of a mammal, which would exclude fish (and probably poultry).
The second definition isn't used as often, but you will find it many dictionaries, and some people do use the word in that way and treat meat / poultry / fish as disjoint sets. For example, the classic book "Joy of Cooking" has chapters titled "Shellfish", "Fish", "Poultry and Wildfowl", "Meat" (pork, beef, lamb), and "Game". (Actually, I guess "Joy of Cooking" is being even more specific and taking "meat" to mean domesticated mammal flesh, because there are some mammals in the "Game" chapter.)
This question could be posed better, but it does deserve an answer. "Meat" does not have a precise biological meaning; its meaning is largely cultural. Some people distinguish "red meat" and "white meat"; others understand meat as separate from poultry, and seafood (is fish seafood? same story). In fact, in some languages the word for "meat" is more specific to mammal meat - e.g. french, "viande" vs "volaille" - in others less so: in Japanese, 魚 (fish) is definitely not 肉 (meat) but you eat 牛肉 (cow-meat) and 鳥肉 (bird-meat).
The vocabulary of cooking is full of these sort of things (legumes/vegetables/fruits/...is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable? is a potato a vegetable?)
The OP never said fish wasnt meat, so it seems like it could be jab. I can't tell if it was, and I have no real stake in the argument, but when I read the question I felt it could be a bit too open to be interpreted as hostile.
Not speaking for the OP, but Catholics don’t consider fish or seafood to be meat from a religious perspective when practicing abstinence every Friday (and Ash Wednesday) during Lent.
