• Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    There is no animal called “cow”.

    Cow is a term for females of multiple species.

    The animal that gives us milk is called cattle. Female cattle are cows. Male cattle are bulls.

    I always thought cattle was a synonym for livestock, but it is a species of animal.

    • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Words mean how people use them. There is absolutely an animal called a cow, regardless of sex, and it’s a synonym for cattle.

      You are also correct that cow means female is many species.

    • waz@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Similarly, and also often misunderstood…

      Peacock only refers to the males. A female is called a peahen.

    • itsprobablyfine
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      1 year ago

      Wait. The singular of cattle is cattle? I think that’s the part that confuses me. Or is there no singular and you must use cow/bull? Either way I’ve never really thought about it and now I can’t not

      • xantoxis@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        No, the person you’re replying to is just wrong. The common name for that animal is cow, and in common usage it can refer to both sexes. Cattle is the plural.

      • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Actually, your already familiar with this: Moose.

        One Moose. Two Moose. Male is a bull. Female is a cow. 🤯

      • fubo@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        “Cattle” is a mass noun. You have a lot of cattle.

        If you want to state a number of them, you have seventy-two head of cattle. “Head” is a counter; compare “sheets of paper”, “bales of hay”, or “hands of poker”.

        You wouldn’t say you have fifty hay, or that you played five pokers. And “papers” (count noun) are written works, whereas “paper” (mass noun) or “sheets of paper” (mass noun with counter) is what the works are written on.

        If you’re in the cattle business, you absolutely do care about their age, sex, and reproductive status. So you might have one calf and six cows; or three steers; or two heifers, a yearling calf, and a bull.

        If you really need to refer to one bovine without talking about its age, sex, or reproductive status … you have one head of cattle, or you have a cattlebeast.

        Yep, that’s a thing.

      • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I’m not sure if your mind is blown because you also didn’t know that, or you don’t understand what I’m saying.

        I could clarify if you’d like, but you’ll have to let me know what you mean by Wut.

        • Skyhighatrist@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          What you’ve said is technically correct (the best kind of correct). But the word cattle is also used to refer to other similar animals such as Yak, Bison, Buffalo.

          Merriam-Webster defines cattle as

          : domesticated quadrupeds held as property or raised for use
          specifically : bovine animals on a farm or ranch

          Cambridge defines it as:

          a group of animals that includes cows, buffalo, and bison, that are often kept for their milk or meat

          And Oxford as:

          cows and bulls that are kept as farm animals for their milk or meat

          Wikipedia is more specific and defines it as:

          Cattle or oxen (Bos taurus) are large, domesticated, bovid ungulates. They are prominent modern members of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus Bos.

          Not disputing your fact at all, just clarifying that words often have multiple meanings and meanings also change over time according to popular usage, so saying cattle means livestock isn’t necessarily wrong, it’s just not as precise as the technical definition. And the more people that use it that way the more correct it becomes. As I dove deeper into the topic, I’m seeing evidence that suggests that Cattle is also an American term that means Livestock, but is marked as archaic. Which honestly makes sense as the word’s etymology is the following according to Merriam-Webster:

          Middle English catel, cadel “property (whether real or personal), goods, treasure, livestock, (in plural cateles) possessions,” borrowed from Anglo-French katil “property, goods, wealth,” borrowed from medieval French (dialects of Picardy and French Flanders) catel, going back to Medieval Latin capitāle “movable property, riches,” (in Anglo-Saxon law texts) “head of cattle,” noun derivative from neuter of capitālis “of the head, chief, principal”

          Anyway, good fact nonetheless.

          • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Yeah. I often heard cattle used in that way, so that’s why I thought it. So, no it’s not wrong, but it was pretty wild to learn that it wasn’t completely correct.

              • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                I think it’s the other way around.

                Like you might call a bunch of mindless followers “sheep”. We didn’t name the animal after those people, we started using the word that way because it reminded us of the animal.

                • Skyhighatrist@lemmy.ca
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                  1 year ago

                  The etymology suggests that originally we just called livestock cattle (i.e. these are My animals, my property), and the name was so ubiquitous that when it came time to give the specific species a name, it stuck.

        • oNevia@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Definitely meant as in I had no idea either and you helped me learn something today ☺️