[CarolinaGuitarman]

" Besides, in word usage there is always a broader and narrower use of a word."

In this case, there is only one CORRECT usage.

" No, we are not speaking of the word in its narrow term, but in its broad term, and fish in the broad sense can refer to any creature in the sea."

In the correct sense, it is wrong, dead wrong.

" If you want to narrow the definition, but if one wants to keep it in its broad sense, fish is still a legimate term to use for whale."

But... it's very very wrong.

" They do not match the definitions of modern biologists."

Yes, modern as in the last 300 years or so.

" Well, Webster has Fish defined as any animal in the sea, so whale qualifies."

Not in my Webster's dictionary. Please provide the entire entry from Websters that says that a fish is any animal in the sea, and that there is no other meaning.

[js1138]

http://65.66.134.201/cgi-bin/webster/webster.exe?search_for_texts_web1828=fish

"FISH, n. [L. piscis.]


1. An animal that lives in water. Fish is a general name for a class of animals subsisting in water, which were distributed by Linne into six orders. They breathe by means of gills, swim by the aid of fins, and are oviparous. Some of them have the skeleton bony, and others cartilaginous. Most of the former have the opening of the gills closed by a peculiar covering, called the gill-lid; many of the latter have no gill-lid, and are hence said to breathe through apertures. Cetaceous animals, as the whale and dolphin, are, in popular language, called fishes, and have been so classed by some naturalists; but they breathe by lungs, and are viviparous, like quadrupeds. The term fish has been also extended to other aquatic animals, such as shell-fish, lobsters, &c. We use fish, in the singular, for fishes in general or the whole race."