michigoose and michigas

[Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM]

Sharyn Hay, as storkrn <storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM>, writes:

>>>>>
At 3:04 PM -0400 7/13/00, Frank Abate wrote:
Michigander is the fem. form.  The masc. is Michigoose.

vice versa, rather.  "goose" is one of the relatively rare birds and beasts
in which the female is the unmarked.

Mark Mandel replied:

ISTM* that this set consists of those species (word used loosely) whose
female produces either eggs or milk that are economically useful:
cow
chicken
goose
duck

Others?
* Sorry: It Seems To Me.

Mark Mandel, have you ever heard of yak milk, camel milk, goat milk, emu
eggs, ostrich eggs, etc. One nation's economically useful species is not
necessarily another's.
<<<<<

I'm sorry for any lack of specificity. It occurred to me as I sent off the
message that the economy in question was that of native speakers of
English, and specifically of English that's old enough to have given rise
to the markedness patterns being discussed here for general American
English; thus, for example, excluding potential native Australian or South
African English, whose speakers may for all I know consider emu and ostrich
eggs as standard dietary items, as well as the speech of American
English-speaking goat breeders. But I didn't think I had to point that out.

I would not be at all surprised to learn that the default Sherpa word for
'milk' includes yak's milk, possibly as well as cow's milk and the milk of
any of the numerous types of hybrid that Sherpa has distinct words for,
IIRC*; nor would I be surprised to learn that they have distinct lexical
items for 'cow's milk' and 'yak's milk'.

* If I Recall Correctly

   Mark A. Mandel : Dragon Systems, a Lernout & Hauspie company
 Mark_Mandel at dragonsys.com : Sr. Linguist & Mgr. of Acoustic Data
 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02460, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com
                     (speaking for myself)