Re: Epicene words

On 28 Feb 2005, at 3.47 pm, Damian Yerrick wrote:

> "Tristan McLeay" <conlang@...> wrote:
>
>>> It is similar in this respect to the word "hen."  A flock of hens
>>> means (at least to me) a flock of female chickens.  One must specify
>>> hen sparrows or hen pigeons or whatever.
>>
>> I always thought chickens *were* females, and that it was much the
>> same
>> as cows in that respect. (The only species other than chooks/chickens
>> for which I use 'hen' though is the peacock (male+epicene) and the
>> peahen (female), and with the word 'chook' so conveniently in my
>> lexicon I almost never use the word 'hen' to mean 'chook'.)
>
> "Chook"?  Sounds like a racial slur.
See recent archives. (Rhymes with 'book', not 'gook'.)

> For chickens, I've always used "rooster" for male and "hen" for
> female.  (In the United States, "cock" is impolite because it also
> means penis.)
See now, I'd always thought of 'chicken' as being the American and
eating word, 'chook' being the Australian word, and 'hen' being the
British word.

I suppose 'chook' mustn't be a simple translation of 'chicken' then
(notwithstanding the fact that if you eat it, it's probably chicken).
Makes chook:rooster:chicken even more like cow:bull:beef, then. Perhaps
this was the motivation.

--
Tristan.