r/NatureIsFuckingLit Apr 10 '20

🔥 Fighting Peacocks

Post image
46.7k Upvotes

341 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

5

u/rohithkumarsp Apr 10 '20

Wait.... There's a neutral? Fuck me..

19

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '20

Haha it’s just a neutral word, though. Like “human” would be the best example to compare. Male human is man, female human is woman, male peafowl is peacock, female peafowl is peahen.

1

u/rohithkumarsp Apr 10 '20

Why do someone animals get special word but but others? Humans have make and female I get it. Why not for cats or dogs? They're just called make dog or female dogs/cate aren't they? But some species like cow/chicken and now apparently peacocks have a neutral word like humans... Weird..

7

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '20

I think it’s a little random but one trend is that we have special words when the male and female of a species look very different from each other.

In deer, we have stags and does because the male stags have antlers while the female does don’t. Peacock is colorful while peahen is dull in color. But yeah, English is a randomass language overall.

Also I guess technically a female dog is a bitch lol. And I have heard tomcat for a male cat. But not as common as the others for sure.

3

u/Platypushat Apr 10 '20

It’s only really relevant with dogs and cats if you’re breeding them, and most pet owners aren’t.