The other night we were in the car with Hubby’s parents, driving home from a yummy birthday dinner (Hubby’s). Hubby’s mom told a story about how Manhattan Brother was the first one to correctly answer the question “What is the difference between a heifer and a hereford?” in his vet school interview. Oh, how my husband and my in-laws chuckled at that one. And while it took me a minute I did know the answer. But honestly, that is only because I married Hubby and he forced the information on me.
A few years ago Hubby and I were driving home from his parents house when we somehow got into a long “discussion” about the different names for cattle. Or more specifically, what is the common plural form for bovine? Both sides got pretty heated.
For all you city-folk, here are the correct definitions:
- A “cow” is a female bovine after she has birthed a calf.
- A “heifer” is a female before she births a calf.
- A “bull” is a male bovine that still has all his parts.
- A “steer” is a male sans parts.
So, Hubby said it is incorrect to look at a field and say “Look at all those cows.” Because while most likely all those cattle in the field are cows, not ALL of them are, so all those cows is technically incorrect.
I argued back that no one is going to say “Look at all those bovines!” And he argued back that I was born in the city and farmers would laugh at me when I called a “bull” a “cow.” Which I was not doing. I was referring to the plural, but he still said they’d laugh at me.
Once home he looked up the definition of what to call a herd of bovine. And who was right? This city girl. Thank you. You may all call them “cows” and no one will laugh at you.
A few years later we were watching Saturday morning cartoons when “CowMan” came on. We all know that is wrong. What made it even more wrong is that “CowMan” walked on his hind legs and had udders. Then he sprayed milk from those udders. Even this city girl was disgusted with the ignorance of those cartoonists.
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They’ll still laugh at you.
Thank you for the education…it will come in handy now that I live in the country!
See, this is why I’m moving from rural Kansas to Boston; I just don’t get this stuff.
And I would hate to annoy any local farmers with my ignorance.
Oh, the plural is easy: cattle. It’s the singular that’s a problem, if you don’t know the gender of the critter in question. “One cattle” doesn’t really work, “one head of cattle” sounds plain silly. “Beef” only works if it’s for eating, and so on.
I worked at a bank in downtown Wichita with a guy who had eleven cattle out by Goddard, and who was constantly trying to explain the finer points of bovine grammar. One week, his cattle escaped. We stopped by his cube regularly for “Where are they now?” updates, as various neighbors called him to let him know they’d been spotted. If Google Maps had been around back then, we’d've had a Herd Tracking Map going on. The same storm that had spooked them into running through a fence had left a lot of mud, so they were usually someplace they couldn’t get a trailer into.
Eventually, someone called to report they were someplace accessible, and he took off work to recover them. And so (being IT folks), we built him a corral while he was gone. In his cubicle. With a made-from-Gateway-cow-spot-boxes cow inside.
We made sure it was unambiguously “a cow”: it had an udder, though it’s been ten years and I forget what particular office supplies it was repurposed from.
The moral: do not get too pedantic with your non-farming cow orkers.
Bovine isn’t exactly correct either, as bovine also includes ox, bison, buffalo, etc. To be specific, the genera name is “cattle,” which is plural and has no singular equivalent (called a “plurale tantum”).
James, I think that might have been part of our argument. too: What do you call a singular bovine? As in, “Look at that cow over there?” Since it may not have been a cow I was pointing at. So thanks for clearing that up.
Thanks for making me laugh today.
Last year I took my mom to have some small spots of skin cancer removed. I was in the room for the procedure and my youngest daughter came back for a while to see what was going on. She left quickly when the dermatologist had to do some cauterizing because the smell of burnt flesh made her feel queasy. It didn’t bother me, and I was interested to see the procedure.
The doc chuckled and said he was used to the smell from when he was growing up on the farm and would help castrate the cows. I had the hardest time not busting up, but did manage to control my laughter for the most part. I couldn’t supress a little giggle followed by, “Oh really. *Cows* you say?” He turned a bit red and quickly corrected his mistake, but he still said steers which would only be the correct term after they no longer needed to be castrated. Perhaps the old joke is true, “If you can’t get into vet school, go for med school.”
Thanks for the explanation! This was a nice reference when we were watching “Barnyard” with the kids…Except we still haven’t figured out why Otis has udders!
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