Is it OK if this thread title keeps making me want to say "Qu'est-ce que c'est?"No, it's really not. You should get some help for that problem.
We need more words with the suffix -cide.None of those really scans well.
Additional possibilities might be killing: silence, time, joy, buzzes, and switches.
Porter, you're so ungrateful. Do you know that there are little children in China right now who don't even have needless synonyms and ludicrously-specific words?You're sure about that? ;)
Porter, you're so ungrateful. Do you know that there are little children in China right now who don't even have needless synonyms and ludicrously-specific words?They also don't have their gorgeous calligraphic system for writing because they have to pay all superfluous strokes and character radicals in taxes to the communist party. Leaving only that ugly, albeit easier to write version.
I can't tell if that's a joke or not.It's a joke that's only funny because it's not really a joke. :P
It's not like English, or any other spoken language except for Esperanto, was designed.
Redeem? Redeeming angel works, I think.In the context of Monte Cristo, it really does.
Porter, you're so ungrateful. Do you know that there are little children in China right now who don't even have needless synonyms and ludicrously-specific words?Maybe I'll donate defenestration to them.
It's a joke that's only funny because it's not really a joke. :PHuh? How so?
An' I helped!QuoteRedeem? Redeeming angel works, I think.In the context of Monte Cristo, it really does.
While I normally think that English's superfluity of redundancy to be ungood, I really did get annoyed when I couldn't think of an appropriate word for that specific concept. My inconsistency is funny. At least to me.QuoteIt's a joke that's only funny because it's not really a joke. :PHuh? How so?
tret (trɛt)
— n
commerce (formerly) an allowance according to weight granted to purchasers for waste due to transportation. It was calculated after deduction for tare
Singular terminology issue
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". There is no universally used singular form in modern English of "cattle", other than the sex- and age-specific terms such as cow, bull, steer and heifer. Historically, "ox" was a non-gender-specific term for adult cattle, but generally this is now used only for draft cattle, especially adult castrated males. The term is also incorporated into the names of other species such as the musk ox and "grunting ox" (yak), and is used in some areas to describe certain cattle products such as ox-hide and ox-tail.
"Cow" is in general use as a singular for the collective "cattle", despite the objections by those who insist it to be a female-specific term. Although the phrase "that cow is a bull" is absurd from a lexicographic standpoint, the word "cow" is easy to use when a singular is needed and the sex is unknown or irrelevant - when "there is a cow in the road", for example. Further, any herd of fully mature cattle in or near a pasture is statistically likely to consist mostly of cows, so the term is probably accurate even in the restrictive sense. Other than the few bulls needed for breeding, the vast majority of male cattle are castrated as calves and slaughtered for meat before the age of three years. Thus, in a pastured herd, any calves or herd bulls usually are clearly distinguishable from the cows due to distinctively different sizes and clear anatomical differences. Merriam-Webster, a U.S. dictionary, recognizes the non-sex-specific use of "cow" as an alternate definition, whereas Collins, a UK dictionary, does not.
Colloquially, more general non-specific terms may denote cattle when a singular form is needed. Australian, New Zealand and British farmers use the term "beast" or "cattle beast". "Bovine" is also used in Britain. The term "critter" is common in the western United States and Canada, particularly when referring to young cattle. In some areas of the American South (particularly the Appalachian region), where both dairy and beef cattle are present, an individual animal was once called a "beef critter", though that term is becoming archaic.
Further, any herd of fully mature cattle in or near a pasture is statistically likely to consist mostly of cowsAround here, if you see a one or two in a field, it is likely a steer.
I think that those in the cattle industry (which we are not -- we raised a whole whopping 2 steer from calf this year) might simply refer to them as heads, as in "2000 heads [of cattle]". That also does not work for our purposes, as our little farm has much more diversity, and the head count of our livestock is not the same as the number of cattle we have.
I think you'll probably be just fine if you call them cows.You underestimate my neurosis. ;)
Cattle did not originate as the term for bovine animals. It was borrowed from Old French catel, itself from Latin caput, head, and originally meant movable personal property, especially livestock of any kind, as opposed to real property (the land, to also include wild or small free-roaming animals such as chickens, which would be sold as part of the land).[9] The word is closely related to "chattel" (a unit of personal property) and "capital" in the economic sense.[10][11] The term replaced earlier Old English feoh "cattle, property" (cf. German: Vieh, Gothic: faihu).From wikipedia.
You could also refer to them by breed. If you don't know the breed, you get to sound like a city dweller and call them cows.
I said that?
Why does beef mean the meat? Is there a word for the meat of a goat?
So how do you explain the occasional difference in other languages between the animal name and the meat name? I only know Spanish, but I suspect the distinction exists in other languages too.
Chicken: gallina/pollo
Deer: ciervo/venado
But, compare:
Cow: vaca/carne (de vacuno)
Pig: cerdo/carne (de cerdo)
Lamb: oveja or cordero/ carne (de cordero)
Fish: pez/pescado
It's because the aristocracy in England was French-speaking for so long that we developed synonym pairs for meat and animal. The words for the animals (cow, pig, sheep) came from the words the Anglo-Saxon speaking peasants, who raised the live animals, would use. Whereas, the words for the meat (beef, pork, mutton) came from the French that the nobles, who typically only dealt with animals on their plates, spoke. (Chevon is similar)
Isn't that cool?
Fish: pez/pescado