--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Andrew Jarrette" <anjarrette@...> wrote:
> As an aside, what _does_ one call the singular of "cattle" in English?
> One can't say "a cattle", nor "an ox" because that's a castrated
> male, isn't it, and "a neat" is too archaic and refers only to draught
> animals I think, so what is there other than "cow" for the generic
> singular? Webster's says this generic use of "cow" is an Americanism,
> so what do Britishfolk say?
This problem is why I admit 'cow' as a last resort. And if all one
can determine is that it is an adult animal, 'cow' is the best bet,
though there are quite a few bullocks around. (One suspects that
bulls are mostly kept to deter ramblers.) In practical situations,
calling a bull a 'cow' is dangerous even if the bull doesn't hear the
description. I might chase a cow off the front lawn - not a bull.
As far as formal grammar is concerned, _cattle_ has no singular.
English is not unique in this - as far as I am aware, Latin _liberi_
'children' had no singular but was otherwise a normal plural as far as
numbers were concerned. FWIW, my take on the English plural noun
_people_ is that its singular is _person_.
Richard.