What is the gender-neutral, singular word for cow or bull (in the standard bovine usage—“whale”, “elephant”, and the like will not be accepted)?
I've posted the answer to the last quiz; I'll try to be more prompt this time. Once again, no looking it up before answering!
肉？
errr... sorry, make that 牛。
What, no Greek? Latin? You disappoint me ;)
That said, I was, in typical American-centric fashion, looking for the English...
Well, I was gonna say bos, bovis, but I do believe that's feminine.
Perhaps heifer? But if I correctly recall my middle-school taunts and name-calling, it seems that heifer has a distinct feminine connotation...
I think the plural is cattle, so I'm going to guess Kitty!
Domesticated bovine quadruped? Kine? Steer? No, wait, that's the male form of heifer or something...Hey Sooeeeeeeey??
MOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Ah, your readers love a quiz!
Definitely not heifer. But I'm stumped. Maybe "doggie?!?"
The correct answer is... ox: “a domesticated bovine anmial kept for milk or meat; a cow or bull” [1]. How boring is that? In addition to the 'castrated bull' definition I associate it with, it's the singular form of the general term 'oxen'. In default of a clear winner, this round goes to Duncan for his two correct alternate-language answers—at least, I assume they are correct :) Wikipedia backs up the Kanji/Hanzi answer (although I am completely ignorant about the meaning of the second symbol), and while bos is a feminite noun, it's gender-neutral in meaning. But I liked everyone's answers, so 2000 points to Duncan and 1000 to everyone else. (But remember, the points don't matter—that's right, the points are like the vocative declension of most Latin nouns).
If the interest keeps up, I'll have to make this a regular (fortnightly?) event!
[1] Consise Oxford English Dictionary, Revised Tenth Edition, pg. 1019 (there's your footnote, but I'm too lazy to look up correct citation form for dictionaries ;) )
The second symbol (肉) is read (usually) as "niku". Many of us traditionally associate bovine species as naught more than meat, and I almost never use 牛 (usually read "gyuu") outside of the context of 牛肉 ("gyuuniku", meaning beef, literally "cow meat") or 鳥肉 ("toriniku", meaning chicken, literally "bird meat").
That said, YAY FOR POINTS!!!
More quizzes! More points!
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Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
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