Question to the native speakers:

I always thought it was a kind of a "language skills problem" that many German speaking translate "giftige Schlange" to "poisonous snake" instead of "venomous snake".

Is it a wide spread misuse of the terms in English speaking countries too? Read this for a couple of times recently ...

Not a native speaker, but: "poisonous snake" is actually a very common misuse of the term "poisonous" among English speakers. Biologists are probably the only people who really understand the difference and use the terms correctly. Try typing "poisonous snake" (with quotation marks) into Google and see how many hits you get. I was actually pleasantly surprised to see that you get more than twice as many hits if you search for "venomous snake".

Depends on if you wanna eat that snake, or get bitten by.

Peter

I don't know any "poisonous" snake Peter, but I won't eat snakes anyway.
Thanks Wolfgang for the information.

Rhabdophis is the classic example for a venomous and poisonous snake, but it might be a bad idea to eat a gartersnake ( Thamnophis ) after eating Taricha granulosa, that might be poisonous to you as well

Ah thanks Fabian, did not know that from the keelback snakes.

I have a feeling Diadophis are unpalatable as well, although I have no idea where I read that....

In a book title ...

http://www.chimaira.de/gp/product_info.php/info/p59475_Indian-poisonous-snakes---an-ecological-and-clinical-Study.html/XTCsid/97740def18676b50e44fa85bbd04d4e5

This reminds me of Alice Cooper... "I want to kiss you but your lips are venomous poison ".. But yeah perhaps he ain't talking about snakes.
Hoh hah heh heh