system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: how is fish not considered meat?

It's lent season here in the USA, and once again I'm left with the question of how fish isn't meat.  For those outside America, catholics here have a tendency to give up meat for lent - I understand that lent works differently outside of America.

Anyway, fish are (questionably) intelligent life forms much likeI any beef or poultry; so how is it that they are not considered meat?
gpt
Lent is a thing in the Catholic church.  The Roman Catholic Church.  This was the church of the Roman Empire.  For centuries, services were done in Latin, as were all official church rules.  They used to have a rule (which is still widely followed, but not required) that said "don't eat meat on Fridays".  When it was written in Latin, it used a word that meant "pigs and cows but not fish".

If you look at your day to day life, you go to a butcher for "meat" but a fishmonger/market for "fish".  They're also in separate cases at the supermarket.