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From: deb5@harper.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Singular of "cattle" [was: Re: H2O is water, water is H2O
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References: <4fq6qp$7ik@bertrand.carleton.ca> <DoJBnD.Ms2@logic.uc.wlu.edu> <4inmhv$grg@news.ccit.arizona.edu> <4iqlda$dd4@hustle.rahul.net>
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 05:48:27 GMT
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In article <4iqlda$dd4@hustle.rahul.net>, Carl Weidling  <cpw@rahul.net> wrote:

[most everything deleted]
>be sure your own language doesn't have similar limitations.  One
>limitation my native language has that's always bugged me is that there's
>no singular for 'cattle'.

Me, too.  "A head of cattle" is incredibly awkward and my farm-raised 
father used to get in an uproar whenever I said "cow."  He loved
to point out the "cows" which still had penises.

Someone in one of these two groups once made the point that "cow" is simply
an exception to the general rule that, for animals for which separate terms
exist for both genders, the masculine is used for a representative whose
gender is indeterminate (what one of my teachers called "common" gender).  
I'll go with that, though the shift is only completed in the speech of
young and urban speakers.

D. v. Brighoff

P.S.  A better refutation of the GEVH is a listing of all the distinct
English lexemes for "water in a solid state," i.e. snow, grauple, powder,
sleet, hard-pack, and a lot more terms limited to ski-jargon.  (Amazing!
People for whom the exact nature of a snowfield is important have several
distinct words for snow!  Someone call Ripley's...)


-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
