Idiom question

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 02:44 PM 1/21/00 -0800, Andrea Vine wrote:
>Beverly Flanigan wrote:
> >
> >   The basic problem in this country, of course,
> > is that non-rural people no longer know the difference between cows,
> > heifers, bulls, and steers!
>
>I don't think that is the "problem".  The term "cow" is the generic term
>for the
>animal, regardless of sexual status.  If you say "heifer", you're only talking
>about a female cow.  If you say "bull" or "steer", you're only talking about a
>male cow (with a difference in sterility).  But if you say "cow", you're not
>specifying the sex.


Well, that may be true for semantic feature categorists, but "cows" are
most definitely only female for farmers!  If a non-farmer were to call a
bull a "cow," he'd be laughed out of (or back to) town.