$10 says you are the person that makes everyone bummed when you show up .
Edit: you sure have a lot of accounts to downvote me with lil fella. I bet you’ll have a great time talking about it tomorrow alone I mean with your “friends”.
Hey everyone, look at this guy! He thinks he deserves upvotes for being clever and not downvotes for an off topic, personal attack that derails the conversation.
Welcome to lemmy, where proper rediquette is actually followed sometimes.
Leonard, I give zero fucks about fake Internet points, I wasn’t trying to be clever, and I wasn’t trying to derail a conversation that wasn’t even happening… but it seems I sure was stating a fact.
Words don’t work this way. They more often than not have multiple, somewhat overlapping, meanings. For example, Wiktionary lists five meanings for the word, when it comes to quadrupeds:
(strictly) An adult female of the species Bos taurus, especially one that has calved.
(loosely or informal) Any member of the species Bos taurus regardless of sex or age, including bulls and calves.
(uncommon) Beef: the meat of cattle as food.
(uncommon) Any bovines or bovids generally, including yaks, buffalo, etc.
(biology) A female member of other large species of mammal, including the bovines, moose, whales, seals, hippos, rhinos, manatees, and elephants.
You’re likely referring to meaning #4 or #5, but keep in mind that #1 is the most common and #2 is likely the original one (due to the cognates).
See in number 2, where it says loosely or informal?
That means, “people have said this wrong for so long, that some may become argumentative if you try to tell them it’s wrong.”
Kind of like how literally, literally means literally, but it was funny to say literally when you meant figuratively, so literally literally is literally literally figuratively literally. Literally.
“Loosely or informal” solely means that it’s associated with an informal register, specially in contrast with #1. Any claim past is assumption.
“Wrong” is relative. Which is the standard/reference that you’re using for contrast? Your own usage?
And odds are that #2 is the original meaning. It isn’t like “people suddenly started to refer to Bos taurus regardless of sex”, it’s more like “people have been using it with this meaning for thousands of years”. #1 (the more common meaning) is likely the result of semantic narrowing, and #5 (the one that you’re defending as “correct”) is probably fairly recent. None of those meanings should be seen as “incorrect”, but picking on a meaning that backtracks all the way into Proto-Indo-European is extremely obtuse. (And no, the situation is nothing like the one for “literally”.)
What you’ve said is technically correct (the best kind of correct). But the word cattle is also used to refer to other similar animals such as Yak, Bison, Buffalo.
Merriam-Webster defines cattle as
: domesticated quadrupeds held as property or raised for use
specifically : bovine animals on a farm or ranch
Cambridge defines it as:
a group of animals that includes cows, buffalo, and bison, that are often kept for their milk or meat
And Oxford as:
cows and bulls that are kept as farm animals for their milk or meat
Wikipedia is more specific and defines it as:
Cattle or oxen (Bos taurus) are large, domesticated, bovid ungulates. They are prominent modern members of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus Bos.
Not disputing your fact at all, just clarifying that words often have multiple meanings and meanings also change over time according to popular usage, so saying cattle means livestock isn’t necessarily wrong, it’s just not as precise as the technical definition. And the more people that use it that way the more correct it becomes. As I dove deeper into the topic, I’m seeing evidence that suggests that Cattle is also an American term that means Livestock, but is marked as archaic. Which honestly makes sense as the word’s etymology is the following according to Merriam-Webster:
Middle English catel, cadel “property (whether real or personal), goods, treasure, livestock, (in plural cateles) possessions,” borrowed from Anglo-French katil “property, goods, wealth,” borrowed from medieval French (dialects of Picardy and French Flanders) catel, going back to Medieval Latin capitāle “movable property, riches,” (in Anglo-Saxon law texts) “head of cattle,” noun derivative from neuter of capitālis “of the head, chief, principal”
Yeah. I often heard cattle used in that way, so that’s why I thought it. So, no it’s not wrong, but it was pretty wild to learn that it wasn’t completely correct.
Like you might call a bunch of mindless followers “sheep”. We didn’t name the animal after those people, we started using the word that way because it reminded us of the animal.
The etymology suggests that originally we just called livestock cattle (i.e. these are My animals, my property), and the name was so ubiquitous that when it came time to give the specific species a name, it stuck.
There is no animal called “cow”.
Cow is a term for females of multiple species.
The animal that gives us milk is called cattle. Female cattle are cows. Male cattle are bulls.
I always thought cattle was a synonym for livestock, but it is a species of animal.
Words mean how people use them. There is absolutely an animal called a cow, regardless of sex, and it’s a synonym for cattle.
You are also correct that cow means female is many species.
Ok
$10 says you are the person that makes everyone bummed when you show up .
Edit: you sure have a lot of accounts to downvote me with lil fella. I bet you’ll have a great time talking about it tomorrow
aloneI mean with your “friends”.Wow. You really over estimated how much I care. Here, I’ll upvote you so you can feel better about yourself.
Also why would you even bother creating accounts to downvote someone
I guess that’s important to some people.
Well thank you Mr comment watcher person. I sure do feel fuzzy inside now.
Glad I could help! Hope today is great as well!
Hey everyone, look at this guy! He thinks he deserves upvotes for being clever and not downvotes for an off topic, personal attack that derails the conversation.
Welcome to lemmy, where proper rediquette is actually followed sometimes.
Leonard, I give zero fucks about fake Internet points, I wasn’t trying to be clever, and I wasn’t trying to derail a conversation that wasn’t even happening… but it seems I sure was stating a fact.
Similarly, and also often misunderstood…
Peacock only refers to the males. A female is called a peahen.
That is such a logical thing, when you think about it.
Collectively they are an ungodly ruckus of peafowl.
My parents have several peacreatures… a refer to them as shut the fuck up… they are the donkeys of birds and should be exterminated.
Oh yeah! That’s a good one too!
You say peacock and nobody bats an eye… but you say poopcock and everyone LOSES THEIR MINDS
- The Joker
Words don’t work this way. They more often than not have multiple, somewhat overlapping, meanings. For example, Wiktionary lists five meanings for the word, when it comes to quadrupeds:
You’re likely referring to meaning #4 or #5, but keep in mind that #1 is the most common and #2 is likely the original one (due to the cognates).
See in number 2, where it says loosely or informal?
That means, “people have said this wrong for so long, that some may become argumentative if you try to tell them it’s wrong.”
Kind of like how literally, literally means literally, but it was funny to say literally when you meant figuratively, so literally literally is literally literally figuratively literally. Literally.
“Loosely or informal” solely means that it’s associated with an informal register, specially in contrast with #1. Any claim past is assumption.
“Wrong” is relative. Which is the standard/reference that you’re using for contrast? Your own usage?
And odds are that #2 is the original meaning. It isn’t like “people suddenly started to refer to Bos taurus regardless of sex”, it’s more like “people have been using it with this meaning for thousands of years”. #1 (the more common meaning) is likely the result of semantic narrowing, and #5 (the one that you’re defending as “correct”) is probably fairly recent. None of those meanings should be seen as “incorrect”, but picking on a meaning that backtracks all the way into Proto-Indo-European is extremely obtuse. (And no, the situation is nothing like the one for “literally”.)
Wut.
I’m not sure if your mind is blown because you also didn’t know that, or you don’t understand what I’m saying.
I could clarify if you’d like, but you’ll have to let me know what you mean by Wut.
What you’ve said is technically correct (the best kind of correct). But the word cattle is also used to refer to other similar animals such as Yak, Bison, Buffalo.
Merriam-Webster defines cattle as
Cambridge defines it as:
And Oxford as:
Wikipedia is more specific and defines it as:
Not disputing your fact at all, just clarifying that words often have multiple meanings and meanings also change over time according to popular usage, so saying cattle means livestock isn’t necessarily wrong, it’s just not as precise as the technical definition. And the more people that use it that way the more correct it becomes. As I dove deeper into the topic, I’m seeing evidence that suggests that Cattle is also an American term that means Livestock, but is marked as archaic. Which honestly makes sense as the word’s etymology is the following according to Merriam-Webster:
Anyway, good fact nonetheless.
Yeah. I often heard cattle used in that way, so that’s why I thought it. So, no it’s not wrong, but it was pretty wild to learn that it wasn’t completely correct.
What’s wild to me is that humans decided to name a whole-ass species “Property”.
I think it’s the other way around.
Like you might call a bunch of mindless followers “sheep”. We didn’t name the animal after those people, we started using the word that way because it reminded us of the animal.
The etymology suggests that originally we just called livestock cattle (i.e. these are My animals, my property), and the name was so ubiquitous that when it came time to give the specific species a name, it stuck.
I just assumed otherwise, because that’s pretty funny if it’s true.
Definitely meant as in I had no idea either and you helped me learn something today ☺️