Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: Epicene words

From:Tristan McLeay <conlang@...>
Date:Monday, February 28, 2005, 7:07
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.