From: Rick McCallister
Message: 62145
Date: 2008-12-18
> From: Brian M. Scott <BMScott@...>Occasionally you hear "a bovine". Back in the day, they used to say, "a beef." My mother told me that every November, her dad would "kill a beef" and salt it for the winter.
> Subject: Re[2]: Res: Res: [tied] Reindeer domestication : two origins
> To: "Andrew Jarrette" <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Date: Thursday, December 18, 2008, 6:08 PM
> At 2:40:10 PM on Thursday, December 18, 2008, Andrew
> Jarrette wrote:
>
> > As an aside, what _does_ one call the singular of
> "cattle"
> > in English?
>
> 'Cow' is pretty standard U.S. usage. 'A head
> of cattle' is
> correct, if a bit clumsy.
>
> > One can't say "a cattle", nor "an
> ox" because that's a
> > castrated male, isn't it,
>
> Not necessarily; the term is also correctly applied to any
> large bovine animal, and I've seen it used as a
> singular of
> 'cattle'.
>
> > and "a neat" is too archaic and refers only
> to draught
> > animals I think,
>
> No, it's simply 'a bovine animal'.
>
> Brian