Tuna may be the chicken of the sea, but octopi, lobsters and crabs are the hens. That is, the females of each those species is called a hen. Aaron Zenz’s lovely book for children I Love Ewe: An Ode to Animal Moms offers a little lesson about female names in the animal kingdom. He does the same for the males of the species in Hug a Bull: An Ode to Animal Dads. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Animal Kingdom Moms and Dads”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
Grant, I have a little quiz for you.
Yes, please.
We know that an adult female deer is a…
Doe.
Right.
We know that an adult female lion is a…
A nala? I don’t know. What?
How about lioness?
Lioness, of course. There we go.
Now, here’s the big question.
An adult female octopus is called a…
It’s a hen.
A hen.
An adult female octopus is a hen.
Some of them do actually make little nests, don’t they?
Octopus nests?
I think so.
They put their eggs in.
I don’t think they brood or anything.
I don’t know what they do, actually.
Where are you reading this stuff?
I am reading this in a children’s book, actually.
Oh, that’s cute.
Look at that little cover there.
Yeah, it’s called I Love You.
E-W-E.
E-W-E.
It’s an ode to animal moms, and it’s by Aaron Zenz.
Z-E-N-Z, right?
Z-E-N-Z, yes.
And it’s a picture book, and it has illustrations of, like, this little calf.
It starts out with a little calf, and the calf says, my mom’s a cow.
I bet you knew that.
Turn the page.
But did you know that not all cows moo?
And then it has all these different animals that are also called cows, technically, like elephants, for example.
So all the other female parents have names in all these species.
Yes.
Of course they do.
For example, from the 18th century on, lobsters and crabs were also called hens.
Okay, I’ve heard that.
And this book is, you know, a children’s picture book.
So I was doing a little bit more research in addition to it.
But I really enjoy it.
He’s also done another one called Hug a Bull, like huggable, which is an ode to animal dads.
And I’m really enjoying these.
I’m going to pass them along to you.
Great.
I’ll share them with Guthrie.
Yeah.
But we’ll talk a little bit more about other animal words in the show later.
So it’s I Love You, E-W-E, by Aaron Zen, Z-E-N-Z.
And the other one is Love a Bull, B-U-L-L, right?
Huggable.
Huggable.
You’re huggable.
All right.
So we’ll talk about animals and children’s books.
Yeah, some of the stuff I’ve been reading to Guthrie at home.
Excellent.
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