That’s odd, you’d think that a male cat would have more, um, tabs. 
I feel a little left out – I have a calico and a tortie, but no tabbies. I have been enjoying the cat pics, though. Squeee!
I also love tuxedos. I’ve had three, all females, and all three of them were absolute terrors. Little demon-possessed monsters. But lovable!
As with most others in the thread, I think of a striped or marbled cat when I hear “tabby.”
I have a mackerel tabby, Dickens, who’s brown with tuxedo markings.
And I have a rather spectacular tortie-tabby, Halley, who only has the M and stripes on the legs.
I always thought Tabbie == Mutt… I stand corrected.
Is there a term for a “mutt” cat?
My vet calls them DSH: Domestic Short Hair. I think that’s pretty generic.
Yep. DSH, or DLH. I call mine mutts, though.
We always called ordinary random-bred cats “alley cats” even though we lived in a semi-rural area. I wasn’t personally acquainted with very many cats that were any particular breed, although we did know a few people with Siamese cats… Cats with stripes were striped cats, with “striped” pronounced as two syllables. I didn’t start calling them tabby cats until I was older and had learned something about cat breeds and markings.
Why did I read up on this? No particular reason, just generally interested. I absorbed lots of irrelevant stuff when I was younger. 
Too true! 
The cat doesn’t care what you call him (for the most part), as long as you feed him and keep his litter box clean!!
Here are some new pix of Freckles.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/oliver_faltz/sets/
He’s a 10-year-old male (neutered) with muted stripes, some of which are broken into spots. He’s a handsome lad.
Click one the one little pic to see them all.
Mutts. Most cats ARE mutts. Tabby just refers to patterns.
I didn’t even know that song existed when I named him Maceo, but it is kinda cool that such a song exists. Maceo has literally no stripes on his body at all. He is varying shades of apricot and beige, tending towards almost white in the belly, chin, and under the tail. On his face he has the M and some lines around his eyes, and there are faint rings on the end of his tail. No one would call him a striped cat or a tabby. This is why I was surprised to hear that all orange cats are tabby, since Maceo really isn’t, visually speaking, a tabby.
The Brits call them “moggies.” I’ve always liked that.
I don’t think having a preference is strange but then variety is the spice of life.
I have…
2 - Calicos, one is dilute, both girls, both bitches
3 - Tuxedos, all girls, all terrors
1 - Solid White, girl, sweety pie
1 - Patched Tabby, girl, sweety pie
1 - Grey Tabby, girl, sweety pie
3 - Grey Tabby w/white. 1 girl, 2 boys, all shitheads
1 - White with tabby patches, boy, Joe Cool
The famous Morris was a male orange tabby. The official bio says “Large red tabby tomcat…Nicknames: ‘The Clarke Gable of Cats’ or ‘The Feline Burt Reynolds’”
My cat Julian looks like the DLH version of Freckles!
My tortie Isabel has definite tabby tendencies. If this picture was straight on you could see that even though her face is half brown/half orange, she has the stripes and the M on her forehead.
I’ve heard that the torties (usually always female) and the orangies (usually male) have the same (genetic color thing that I don’t know the correct term for and am too lazy to look up) but males get the orange color and females get the tortie color.
ETA: Izzy’s ears aren’t dirty, she has the spotted pigments inside her ears, too. It makes me always want to clean them, but they’re already clean!
My mother calls them “alley cats”
Wow, Boscibo! Izzy is a beautiful girl!
She is, isn’t she? She knows it too. She’s 100% princess.
I have 2 of 'em:
Charlie is the orange tabby, and Ruby the classic brown tabby. The brown tabby has always been my favorite cat color, especially with the white trim.
Oooo, he sure does! It’s an unusual pattern. There a cat down the street who could be Freckles’s twin, if he weren’t 5 years younger. A couple times I almost let him in by mistake. Luckily, the “cousin” wears a collar.
Ditto for the “forehead M”. I think the “M” stands for “must be a tabby.”