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I've never heard anything used other than "cow" (which is technically incorrect, I know) and I grew up in Wisconsin with cows next door. So should you go with what is actually in use, or what is technically correct? In the latter case, I don't think there is a singular form of "cattle" but "head of cattle" comes close. Check out this blog for an interesting take on your question:
http://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com/2010/07/13/whats-the-singular-form-of-cattle/
Cow doesn't just mean female, but a female that has given birth. A younger, less-experienced female is a heifer.
Cattlemen who are not dairymen, refer to an individual a a beef, a group as beeves. Dairymen refer to a herd of cattle as cows, but they generally are females that have come fresh. Males in the dairy breeds rarely see a birthday.
The word "cow" doesn't necessarily mean bovine; it also is applied to bison, whales, and, I presume, other species.
Cattle can only be used in the plural and not in the singular: it is a plurale tantum. Thus one may refer to "three cattle" or "some cattle", but not "one cattle". No universally used singular form in modern English of "cattle" exists, other than the sex- and age-specific terms such as cow, bull, steer and heifer.
If you ever get this one resolved, try to figure out the singular of Legos.
My (online) British friends insist that the singular is piece of Legos. Most of the Americans in the same group prefer Lego.
(Strangest irregular singular I ever came across was on a spoof of those "Teen Beat" type magazines, about new wave bands in the '80s. One of the cover headlines was Who's your favorite Flock of Seagull?)
Cattle can only be used in the plural and not in the singular: it is a plurale tantum.[25] Thus one may refer to "three cattle" or "some cattle", but not "one cattle". No universally used singular form in modern English of "cattle" exists, other than the sex- and age-specific terms such as cow, bull, steer and heifer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle#Singular_terminology_issue
Ferd said
Cattle can only be used in the plural and not in the singular: it is a plurale tantum. Thus one may refer to "three cattle" or "some cattle", but not "one cattle". No universally used singular form in modern English of "cattle" exists, other than the sex- and age-specific terms such as cow, bull, steer and heifer.
Is there any universally used word for anything in modern English?
As singular terms for cattle, neither a Brown Swiss nor a Black Angus is sex- or age-specific, nor if you want to remain as species-nonspecific as cattle, is a bovine.
Elohim is a problem child for biblical scholars, because it is a plurale tantum. Biblical translators have often chosen not to translate it into English for reasons of job security, or even health. Their clients are monotheists, ignoring the First Commandment which refers to your god and other gods, rather than to false gods. Indeed, if there were only one god, why should Jehovah be jealous? My late first wife argued that one should never discuss tax refunds in the house or in the car, lest the housing God decide a new water heater was desirable, or the automotive god demand a new clutch. (No proselytization intended.)
Ron Draney said
If you ever get this one resolved, try to figure out the singular of Legos.
According to LEGO.com, it's LEGO. Or LEGO element. However, walking across the floor in bare feet at 3 AM with the lights off, will instantly inspire a plethora of words for an individual LEGO, none of which violate the LEGO Group trademark rights.
One may also question the genetic makeup of the child who left it there. I like to quote the pregnant woman who, patting her belly, said. "My husband cheats on me so much, I have no idea if this baby is his or not,"
Peano said
Cattle can only be used in the plural and not in the singular: it is a plurale tantum.[25]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle#Singular_terminology_issue
I have an unresolved nagging quibble about the Wikipedia article's declaration that cattle is a plurale tantum, even though it is often cited as an example of one.
It is true that it is a plural noun that has no singular. Still, I think it is an essential element of pluralia tantum that the noun has a plural form (e.g. pants, scissors, clothes, suds, whereabouts, shenanigans monkeyshines and hijinks). I don't consider cattle as having a plural form despite its being a plural noun. This is likely because of its etymology from the word for property, a singular collective noun (singular form, singular construction, plural meaning).
There are also words in English that are plural in form, but singular in construction and meaning. These are not pluralia tantum. Physics is a requirement at this school.
I could go on. It is a tangle. At best its lack of obvious plural form makes cattle a flawed example of a plurale tantum for me.
Glenn said Still, I think it is an essential element of pluralia tantum that the noun has a plural form (e.g. pants, scissors, clothes, suds, whereabouts, shenanigans monkeyshines and hijinks).
I can see your reservation regarding Cattle. What sets Cattle apart from Scissors, Pants ... is that it is not 1 of 2 distinct forms of the same word.
On the other hand , one might argue that Cattle is an even more true plurale tantum than those other words, for that its singular counter part doesn't even exist.
As one who is easily amused, I find this definition in Collins (UK) dictionary amusing:
milch
deaconB said
Has milch cow been mostly replaced everywhere by milk cow, or are there pockets of resistance where milch cow is the more common term?
I grew up on a dairy farm until about age 10 and my wife was on one until our marriage where we had milk cows. I did not know the term milch until I studied German at university.
I would find the phrase milk cow a familiar one and, like Emmett, never knew of the existence of milch as a word of the English language. To add to the confusion, several dictionaries provide an alternate pronunciation of milch to be identical to milk:
Webster
Oxford
Since I can't specifically recall seeing milk cow in writing, maybe all along I was hearing a speaker say milch cow and mistaking it for milk cow.
Google Ngrams have an interesting result; milch cow has the lead (often commanding) until about 1947. Milk cow leads (not ever as commanding) after about 1972.
BTW, this editor flags "milch" as a misspelled word.
Glenn said
Since I can't specifically recall seeing milk cow in writing, maybe all along I was hearing a speaker say milch cow and mistaking it for milk cow.
I think I first became aware of the word milch in my forties, and I'm not mistaken, it was Ed Faulkner in Ploughman;s Folly (which became Plowman's Folly in later printings. And I had been regularly reading through the Farm Journal, the Ohio Farmer, and erratically through Hoard's Dairyman. Even the USDA Ag Yearbook didn;t use milch cow. The first 10-15 years of Mother Earth News, I inhaled every word of every article, and I had picked up at auction about 10 years of Rodale's Organic Farming and Gardening. For a while, I thought milch was a britishism, but I no longer think so (admittedly lacking evidence either way.)
In the 1950s, we were taught that when sex was indeterminant, we were to use male pronouns. About 1970, women started claiming they were entitled to chairman instead of chairwoman, etc, leading to today's situation that an actor may be either male or female, but only a female can be an actress. Annoying, but if that were my only problem, I would be blessed.
(N.B. Martha claims she is pan-pandaphilic. I'm not sure if she loves a third of a distress call, or an ancient Hindu kingdom of a Frebch armored car or if it's about red pandae in addition to the giant ones.)
I find loads and loads of examples of milch cow in google books from various places in the USA from the mid-1800s forward:
milch cow in Google books
Among the hits is this delightful example of wordplay in an excerpt from a Ring Lardner skit Cora, or Fun at a Spa subtitled AN EXPRESSIONIST DRAMA OF LOVE AND DEATH AND SEX - IN THREE ACTS. Act III begins:
A Mixed Grill at a Spa. Two Milch Cows sit at a table in one corner, playing draughts. In another corner is seated a gigantic zebu.
FIRST MILCH COW: Don't you feel a draught?
SECOND MILCH COW: No. But we'd better be going. That gigantic zebu is trying to make us.
FIRST MILCH COW: He thinks he is a cow catcher.
SECOND MILCH COW: (As they rise) They say there are still a great many buffaloes in Yellowstone Park.
FIRST MILCH COW: So I herd.
(The Milch Cows go out, followed at a distance by the Zebu. ... )
I also understand that the phrase came to be used figuratively in the sense in which I would say cash cow.
Today's Washington Post says as many as 100 cows may go into a single McDonald's hamburger.
Not 100 cattle. And really, it's more likely to be steers, steer being the term for adult cattle, either female or castrated males. Female cattle tend to be fatter meat, and part of the secret to McDonald's tasteless burgers is lean hamburger.
But they are city boys, and what do they know? (If that's an emasculating insult, why is it that we say good ole boys?
Asking how many cattle it takes to make a hamburger reminds me of the old joke, that it takes 6 elephants to make one piano. It's amazing, what they can teach an elephant to do!
Martha Barnette
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