A poor understanding of the word. By definition (of both the Vegetarian Society and the dictionary), a vegetarian is a person who does not eat meat, including fish or poultry. The VS definition is more expansive and stipulates that a vegetarian diet does not include any slaughter products at all. Some people apparently go by the culinary designations (where meat, poultry, fish, and game are all different), which is why I generally say that I don’t eat animals. That way, there is no ambiguity and people don’t ask whether I eat chicken or fish. All animal flesh used as food is meat. I don’t think that your friends are putting chicken and fish in the same category as vegetables, but they do designate them as different from “meat.” You could teach them the proper word for what they are (pollotarian if they only eat poultry, pescepollotarian if they avoid red meat but not poultry or fish), but otherwise, there’s not much you can do about it. I might be tempted to say, “Well, I’m actually a