fetzerm@Sdsc.Edu (The Rider) (04/06/91)
Does anyone else cringe when the words Elk and buck or doe are used in the same sentence? Can we please call boy elk 'bull' and girl elk 'cow'? I just have these awful visions when I read stuff about Bull Elk mating with does. :-) Just out of curiosity, does anyone know the right term for male bears? I would wager a guess on Boar, since females are Sows, but anyone know for sure? Mike
brentr@cs.colorado.edu (Brent Reeves) (04/07/91)
>>>>> fetzerm@Sdsc.Edu (The Rider) writes: > Does anyone else cringe when the words Elk and buck or doe are used > in the same sentence? Can we please call boy elk 'bull' and girl > elk 'cow'? > I just have these awful visions when I read stuff about Bull Elk > mating with does. :-) > Just out of curiosity, does anyone know the right term for male > bears? I would wager a guess on Boar, since females are Sows, but > anyone know for sure? > Mike As long as I know what a writer means, I don't care too much about how it is said. I tend to give the benefit of the doubt and imagine that the level of specificity is appropriate to the communication intent. There's the males and there's the females... the rest (what you call 'em) is details. It only matters when it is important to distinguish more precisely, e.g. when a game warden approaches your tagged (bull|cow|buck|doe). That you "have these awful visions" is due to your overinterpretation of the message, and less due to the underrepresentation of the message. As far as language goes, subjunctive and dative are also neat things, but few Americans can spell, let alone use, them. So... we should let the language evolve to serve the needs of the users, not force the users to stay within the arbitrary bounds laid down by the designers. (All of this ranting, of course, is IMHO) -- Brent Neal Reeves brentr@cs.colorado.edu (303) 492-1218
marko@hutch (Mark O'Shea) (04/09/91)
In article <505@erb1.engr.wisc.edu> fetzerm@Sdsc.Edu (The Rider) writes: > >Just out of curiosity, does anyone know the right term for male bears? I >would wager a guess on Boar, since females are Sows, but anyone know for sure? ^^^^ Yes. Mark O'Shea marko@ijf1.intel.com
patvh@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Pat Van Hoomissen) (04/09/91)
In article <505@erb1.engr.wisc.edu> fetzerm@Sdsc.Edu (The Rider) writes: > >Just out of curiosity, does anyone know the right term for male bears? I >would wager a guess on Boar, since females are Sows, but anyone know for sure? > I think it is just called a bear. Kind of like how a female dog is called a bitch, but a male is just called a dog. We have cow tags, bull tags, buck tags, doe tags, but only bear tags. The bag limit is described as one bear excluding cubs and sows with cubs. Interesting. So what's a male squid called? Just kidding...