Captain Jelly Belly is learning about farm animals at school right now, so last night we were talking about the different names for the various members of animal families.

Say for example, sheep. The animal family is sheep, the mommy is an ewe, the daddy is a ram, and the baby is a lamb.

Likewise for pigs. The mommy is a sow, the daddy is a boar, and the baby is a piglet.

But for cows…I am stumped. The daddy is a bull. The baby is a calf. What is a mommy cow called?

I’m thinking a mommy cow is a “cow,” since that is the name for the female of other large animal species — a female elephant, whale, or hippo is a cow.

So if “cow” is the name for the female of the species…what is the name of the species?

I just looked it up and found a link that says that the name of the species is “cattle.” Sounds plausible, except I don’t see myself seeing a random unidentified creature and saying, “Hey look, a cattle,” in the same way I might say, “Hey look, a sheep,” or “Hey look, a pig.” Cattle has a plural connotation that the other animal names don’t have. What is the singular of “cattle”?

Hm.

Let us refer that saviour of many a parent of an inquisitive five-year-old, Wikipedia:

Cattle is both a plural and a mass noun, but there is no singular equivalent: 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 equivalent in modern English to “cattle”, other than the gender and age-specific terms such as cow, bull, steer and heifer. Strictly speaking, the singular noun for the domestic bovine was “ox.” However, “ox” today is rarely used in this general sense.

Good ol’ Wiki.

Incidently, a female that has never given birth is a “heifer.” And did you know, also from the same source that the word “cattle” used to refer to all livestock, and the word “deer” used to refer to all wild animals, as used in the bible and other old English sources? Fascinating.

Man, he’s only in JK and already I’m having trouble with his homework. I’m officially passing off all the calculus to Sir Monkeypants.