Okay, this is an old subject… but I’ve been looking through the archives for the heck of it, and came across the question of gender-neutral singulars for cattle, like the subject says. (It came with a question about seaweed in milkshakes. Tangents can get really interesting, no?) Anyway, being the anime addict and all-around Japanophile I am, I like to use ‘ushi’… the Japanese word, obviously. (With ko-ushi for calf, me-ushi for cow, and o-ushi for bull.) It fits in with my fangirl-ness, and ‘ushi’ is a really cute word besides! (Although I do enjoy bullamacow…) Any thoughts?
~Nikki
Yes–welcome to the SDMB! That has to be one of the most interestingly esoteric first posts I have ever seen. Hope you stick around, we can always use more people who know how to say “girl cow” and “boy cow” in Japanese. 
Is ushi singular or plural? How would you use it in a sentence? Is this correct?
“The androgynous butler, on a sign from the master of the house, immediately grasped my elbow. With a murmured apology, ushi ushered me out of the house.”
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One last thing - ignore my previous post on the use of ushi! I misread what you said (I had just been reading Cecil’s column on gender-neutral pronouns) and thought that ushi was a Japanese he/she pronoun. :o
Arnold:
Japanese doesnt differentiate between singular and plural, irritatingly for us westerners whose brains are hard-wired to make this distinction.
Therefore the plural of “sarariiman” is “sarariiman”. Awful, no?
Okay, fine, now I have the indelible mental image of a cow in a butler’s getup politely but firmly escorting Arnold out of OtakuKitty’s house…
Weeeell… ushi is still cow. 
But, as for species-inspecific gender-neutrals, according to my friend Dan, who studies Mandarin, there is a Chinese gender-neutral pronoun, ‘ta’, which as far as I know can be used for any species. Plus, like ushi, it’s just plain fun to say!
~Nikki
I long ago started using “ox”/“oxen” for “individual bovine”/“bovines” because, despite its typical use, in North Am., the term “cattle” comes from a word meaning livestock generally. Merriam-Webster defines it thus:
Hence, in a sheep-raising country, sheep are cattle. “Ox” on the other hand, refers to this particular species. Note the Merriam-Webster definition:
Clearly, the narrower use is secondary.
That said, there’s one perfectly obvious word that Cecil & I have both mentioned: bovine. And it even has a regular plural. So what’s the problem?
(I should add that “beef”/“beeves” is also good.)
I like “beef critter.” If it’s good enough for Gary Cooper, it’s good enough for me.
How about “one head of cattle”.
I think that the reason that the usual words for individual cattle are gender-specific is that gender is Real Important if you are keeping them.
How good are you on your japanese? Can you translate songs and stuff yet?
::trying to be an expert::
** OtakuKitty**–you got lots of potential, honeychild!
Welcome to the SDMB!
Isn’t “kine” both singular and plural? If so, there’s your singular (along with “bovine”). They aren’t common words, but there just isn’t a common gender-neutral word for a single bovine in English.
Weeeell… I can comprehend an awful lot. Like, sitting through unsubbed anime or a drama CD and knowing what’s going on. My speaking isn’t as good… kinda like how, working in a Chinese restaurant, I can read an awful lot(mostly food-related ^_^*)but only write a little. I haven’t really tried translating much… just a couple attempts at short doujinshi(mostly Ronin Warrior/Samurai Trooper related), which I can’t do without my friend furigana and some long periods of sitting and thinking, or consulting a dictionary. I’m slowly struggling my way toward being passable in both written and spoken… I’ve always thought it’d be cool o live in Japan and be an English teacher, I hear they like native speakers as teachers. Maybe by the time I hit twenty-five or so… a lot can happen in five years, yes?
~Nikki(My, this is off-topic…)
By the way… thanks to all the nice people who welcomed me. I feel special.
None of the words suggested in this thread really solve the problem. “Kine” is singular for “kine”. “Beef” is singular for “beeves”. “Ox” is singular for “oxen”. “Cow” is singular for “cows”, “bull” for “bulls”, and “bovine” for “bovines”. So what’s the singular for “cattle”? This is made more relevant, not less, by foolsguinea’s definition, which shows that “cattle” is not exactly synonymous with “oxen” or “beeves” or whatnot, so there are situations where a person might want to specifically refer to cattle rather than bovines.
Quick quesiton OtakuKitty,
You mentioned the neutral ‘ta’ in Mandarin. Is that a pronoun or a classifier?
Well… Dan’s not around to ask right now, sadly. But, the times I’ve seen/heard him use it, he used it as a pronoun.
~Nikki
What about “steer”? Can’t steer be used in the singular?
Hm. Well, steer certainly is singular… and I suppose technically a steer is neither cow nor bull. (Or neither me-ushi or o-ushi, girl beef-critter or boy beef-critter, and so on and so forth.) It’s intended to be rather specific, of course, but if you want to use it as a gender-neutral singular, who am I to stop you?
(Incidentally, I couldn’t find an ‘ushi’ for steer… evidently you would say o-ushi for steer or bull. Which I guess isn’t such a bad idea… considering some men shy away from vasectomies despite the fact that it’s bandaid surgery compared to hysterectomies and the like… on the grounds that they ‘won’t be a real man anymore’. I don’t suppose pointing out that depriving other animals of their… capabilities… really does get rid of masculine tendencies in general helps much, does it?)
~Nikki