Yeah, that would annoy me too.
Not a native English speaker, but didn't "jungle" in the past mean something more like "wilderness" instead of just "tropical rainforest"?
this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2025
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Yes, it did at some point. Time to update, me thinks. ☝️🧐
Yeah, it derives from a Hindustani word that is basically "wilderness". I'm not certain about older English usage, but given that original meaning it would make a lot of sense
Weirdly enough, the Sanskrit word that Hindustani got it from is something closer to "desert". Seems like if you go back far enough it actually specifically excludes tropical rainforests
Interesting thing to note: fire prone brushlands, which are often included in the public coloquial idea of savanna, are one of the few ecosystems with a comparable biodiversity to rainforests. Also, the difference between jungle and rainforest is that the tangle of undergrowth is larger, and sunlight is more able to breach the canopy, fueling that undergrowth. So, if we were willing to stretch these ideas to the absolute extreme, we could argue that the savanna - with fire prone brushlands included - is a jungle due to the heavy "undergrowth" fueled by the sunlight breaching an EXTREMELY sparse canopy.
Or if we want to stick to reality, we can just accept the title is a bit of a misnomer lol
This started as a little pet peeve of mine, but over the years it has grown to a huge, hairy balled peeve, that has to live in the shed now.