Yes, it did go over my head. 
I’m reading that “ox” was once a generic singular descriptor for cattle (not specific to either sex) but the definition changed to draft cattle, specifically castrated bulls. So that no longer works.
But what’s the average flight speed of an unladen cow?
And “Ox” is the word whose plural is “Oxen”. What’s the singular of “cattle”?
“Kine” is the best suggestion I’ve seen.
We also need to think the effect of climate change on the breeds of cattle .
Although that is plural too. From a Middle English singular form kye. Kye sounds like a very posh British person saying cow.
That depends on whether it’s in a super-lunar trajectory or not.
Depends on the size of the weight on the trebuchet used to launch it.
Ah, I should have realized that that was the Old English plural -n ending (now mostly only seen in “oxen”, “children”, and “brethren”).
OK, back to sphere one (since everyone knows cows aren’t square).
A couple of weeks ago I tried looking up an old Abbot and Costello bit about “a cow herd”. This thread is really pinging me on that sketch.
I never found the version I enjoy best from a dude ranch movie they made. Here’s the next best thing.
I had a bunch of relatives who were dairy farmers. It’s would have been quite rare when they would have needed to refer to one animal without being able to refer to its gender. I suspect, if so, they would just have said “head”.
Bessie
“'Nuff Said McGreavy shouted…”
I once read that “cattlebeast” is the proper term you’re looking for, but I’ve never encountered that word out in the wild. Maybe “head of cattle” or “steer”? AFAIK, both are gender-neutral.
Next we must tackle the pig, pork, ham, hog, boar, sow, swine, gilt, grunter, piglet, weaner, porker, cutter fiasco.
Tibby
Guest
Next we must tackle the pig, pork, ham, hog, boar, sow, swine, gilt, grunter, piglet, weaner, porker, cutter fiasco.
Well, I can help narrow this down. I teach my students that countable nouns tend to be sold per piece (pig, hog, sow), while non-countable nouns are usually sold by weight or volume (pork, ham). Their family is suidae (soo-ey, get it?) and their genus is sus.
“Steer” is a male that is … no longer quite so male. Better for beef production, handling and most bulls are not needed for breeding anyway.
Sounds pretty gender neutral to me. Or maybe the term is non-binary. Ask the steer what its prefered pronouns are.
A guy from Montana introduced me to his girlfriend (we were all early 20s). After she walked away, I told him she was really cute. He replied, “oh, she’s a fine heifer”. (A heifer is a young female cow that hasn’t yet had a calf)
Or you can ask the former bull how it feels about the “former” part.
In any case, it is consider by the people who manage the cattle to be a quite male descriptor. Not at all ambiguous.
What’s the singular of “geese”? The word “goose”, like the word “cow”, is both the name for the female of the species and the default term for any individual member of the species.
? Why unbelievable? Technically correct, if rather archaic.
Of course, the non-countable “foodstuff” words are often just derived from countable nouns anyway, like the abovementioned “beef” and also “pork” (Latin porcus, “pig”).
That the plural of beef is beeves is technically correct? Rather than some regional slang play on irregular verbage
Even your own cite gives: 4. plural: Beefs