Would the "flying" type be more appropriately called the "air" type?

Shamol

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
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    Look at some of the flying-type attack names:

    Aerial Ace
    Aeroblast
    Air Cutter
    Air Slash
    Gust
    Hurricane
    Wing attack
    Sky Attack
    Tailwind

    In light of this, wouldn't the type more appropriately be called the air type? Sure, there are moves like peck, drill peck, pluck, roost, brave bird and such, but for me, the flying type movepool suggests the overarching theme of air being used as the primary element, as opposed to just the act of flying.

    This is because there are many Pokemon that can fly, but don't belong to the flying type (Garchomp and Flygon immediately comes to mind). That means it's not the act of flying that bestows this type on pokemon, but rather some sort of specialized control over air.

    Finally, consider the fact that pokemon types, on the whole, tend to be based on natural elements. Wouldn't it make a lot of sense to have a type explicitly based on the air element?

    [This last point could also be used to suggest a renaming of the grass type to plant type (or something similar), and perhaps the fighting type to...chi type? If types are construed as natural elements, then normal types could either be a lack of any element or a combination of all]
     
    Flying and fighting are both silly names for types, as are dragon and fairy. Flying should indeed be air but I've no idea what fighting, dragon or fairy would be replaced with. Really I feel like normal and fighting are kind of redundant, in terms of concepts; one battles using its physical attributes and the other... battles using its physical attributes? And dragon and fairy are more descriptions of (mythological) animals than elements... I (sarcastically) suggest renaming flying to 'bird' and water to 'fish'. Sure not all water type pokemon are fish, but not all dragon type pokemon look like dragons so... In fact, it wouldn't even be that ridiculous, we already have 'bug type' after all!

    I do think grass would be better named 'plant'.

    I also struggle to see why we need both ghost and dark. Neither are really elements - I suppose you could say that ghost represents fear, death and the spirit world but what about dark? It also seems to be used for much the same thing, so they seem pretty redundant.

    In short, there are a lot of things that don't make sense in the typing system, but then there's a lot of things that don't make sense in Pokemon, and we love it anyway!
     
    Although I can see the logic here, when you look at the list of flying Pokemon, a high percentage of them have wings or something similar that would allow them to fly. Of course there are some which would be more fitted to the description of a potential Air type but the large majority of flying types being able to fly means that the actual flying itself might be the main factor in the name of the type.
     
    Here are some pokemon who strike me as pretty adept fliers:

    Beedrill
    Venomoth
    Scizor
    Dustox
    Volbeat
    Illumise
    Vibrava
    Flygon
    Latios
    Latias
    Garchomp
    Hydreigon
    Volcarona

    And yet, they don't have a flying type. If you define the type as having the ability to fly well, I think at least some of these definitely qualify. The fact that they don't tells me the type is defined not in terms of flight alone, but some sort of control over air (which entails flight).

    That or these pokemon couldn't be afforded a flying type because the two type slots were already occupied, but that's no fun.
     
    I mean, Air Type makes me think of some Pokémon that has some kind of magical/supernatural control over the air currents - something like Tornadus - rather than just something with the capacity to fly. I dunno if that's just me, but I feel that Flying is a bit more fitting for something like a Pidgey. It can't control the air in any respect, but it can fly.
     
    EmperorFlux said:
    Air Type????

    Don't all Pokemon breathe air?

    Flying is the most suitable term for these type of Pokemon...
    Click to expand...

    It's not that they breathe air, it's that they have explicit control over air. I, personally, do not think Flying is not that suitable... let's look at some flightless Flying types. We have...

    Doduo
    Dodrio
    Gyarados
    Delibird
    Mantine (technically speaking)
    Mantyke
    Rotom-Fan
    Hawlucha (correct me if I'm wrong here)
    Minior

    Not every Flying-type can fly, but they all can manipulate air to an extent, right? So while I never really thought of it before coming to this thread, I do believe that Air is more fitting.
     
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