humbert@ihlpa.UUCP (Schachter) (01/09/86)
A few months ago I asked readers to help me complete a chart giving the English names of various categories of animals. I thank you all collectively for your valuable replies. The chart is now much more complete than it was before my request, although it is still incomplete: Generic Adult Adult Castrated Child Child Child Single;Plural Male Female Male Generic Male Female Horse ; Horses Stallion Mare Gelding Foal Colt Filly Ox ; Cattle Bull Cow Ox <or> Steer Calf ??? Heifer Swine ; Swine Boar Sow Barrow Shoat ??? Gilt Goat ; Goats Buck <or> Doe <or> ??? Kid ??? ?Doeling? Billy Nanny Sheep ; Sheep Ram Ewe Wether Lamb ??? ??? The questions marks indicate uncertainty. I do not know whether `doeling' is actually used by goat farmers. In general, it appears that goats are less important to the English-speaking peoples than are the other animals on the list, because their language has not developed specialized terms to describe them (`Buck', `Doe', `Kid' and `Doeling' are somewhat all-purpose words that can be used for many different species). Also, notice the absence, or the difficulty of obtaining, words to describe a young male animal. It appears that young female animals are more important to English-speaking farmers than are young male animals, again because their language has developed specialized terms to describe them. The ambiguity of some terms is also interesting. For example, `ox' can be used in a general sense to denote any bull, cow, steer, or calf (in fact, it is the only word I know that provides a singular for `cattle'). It can also be used, however, in a specific sense to denote a steer. I still invite you to help me complete the chart if you can. I also invite you to improve the chart if you can provide words that are either more accurate or less colloquial (for example, I suspect that both `billy' and `nanny' would not appear in a scholarly journal, although of course I may be wrong). After January 17 I shall no longer receive elctronic mail at this address; a forthcoming article in net.net-people will announce my departure from Bell Labs and describe how I can be contacted afterward. jfs