A question of usage

technically you are answering a question with the question :p

that's like saying,"give me another word for 'the'" and you responding with "the" :fly:

Except he wasn't asking for a synonym. He specifically asked for a word that can refer to any bovine. The obvious answer is bovine.

It isn't that big of a deal, it is just one of those brain farts when you are thinking that you are looking for the noun version of an adjactive, not realizing that the word you are referring to can simply be a noun.
 
Except he wasn't asking for a synonym. He specifically asked for a word that can refer to any bovine. The obvious answer is bovine.

It isn't that big of a deal, it is just one of those brain farts when you are thinking that you are looking for the noun version of an adjactive, not realizing that the word you are referring to can simply be a noun.

:lol: No dude, I know that bovine is a noun. My question "specifically referring to an animal of the bovine specie?", to make more clear is "specifically referring to a domesticated animal specie of the bovine genus?"

The thing about bovine is that it includes cattle, and aurochs, and wildebeast etc.
 
Refer to what w_a_w said. Cattle [mass noun referring to a specific specie of domesticated animals] are bovine [adjective describing the genus of that animal] but bovine [noun referring to a genus of animals] are not cattle.

Again, you are not answering my question. If you didn't ask the question in the opening post correctly, then that is not my fault. The answer to the question that you asked is bovine. Pure and simple.

To simplify, if you are asking, "what is a way to refer to cows and bulls together?" then everything you've said is correct and makes sense. If what you are asking is, and I quote, "What is the singular, gender neutral, word, in the English language, specifically referring to an animal of the bovine specie?" then I don't see how "bovine" doesn't fit.
 
so then what's the term for wild cows? :eek:





















































hildabeat.jpg
 
You missed his clarification just now, domesticated

I didn't so much miss it as it happened while I was replying. :)

And I figured that that was the situation. I (for some reason*) just wanted to be clear that the original question had a definitive answer.

*And no, I don't really give a fuck.
 
:lol: I thought you read it since you quoted it

Ah, I see what you mean. I didn't miss it in that post. I did miss it in the previous post.

That was simply my sticking the guns that it answered the original question. In the post you are evidently refering to, I even acknowledged that changing the question made bovine an incorrect answer. Why was I adamant about that? Pure boredom is the best I can guess. (Probably a pride thing as bovine was orginally dismissed as not being correct. Beats me.)
 
Shit, the snow is kinda starting to melt here and I cant even set foot outside. Ever seen 8ft of snow turn into a mushy hell (luckily I can still snowshoe on it). There is absolutely nothing to do in my house and nothing going on jobs. Zomg we need a CAD drafter but they need 5 years experience in cabinetry, and we're only going to pay $8 an hour. Fuck you guys, I'm not even going to lie about having experience for that much money. Target pays better.

So I'm contemplating cows.
 
Bovine is an entire family of wild and domestic animals, Bison are bovine technically. kekeke

But if you are going to break it down that far and look at it that way, so is Cow (female gender of any Bovine) and Bull (male gender of any Bovine).

Would your typical person not realize that you were speaking of a cow (as in moo) in conversation when you say cow .. or would they think you were referring to a Bison? :confused: :lol:

Now, if you reaaaaaally wanted to get technical about it (in an informal way of course) cow would be your word of choice here.
cow1 :
–noun, plural cows
3. Informal. a domestic bovine of either sex and any age.
www.dictionary.com (haha I didn't use google!!)

Seeing how most people refer to both genders as a "cow" when they refer to the species of Bovine i.e. when the cows come home (because we all know that all herds have one boy in them, and we don't say until the cows and the bull come home, do we? lol).

Now whether or not that is grammatically "correct" may be debatable ,but it's how the lazy human speaks these days.

Or you could just call it beef. :shrugs: :D