Joanna:
> Hey, Hamilton, what's with this Freemartin business?
>
> Are you really A sterile or otherwise sexually deficient female calf born
as
> the twin of a bull calf. [17th century: origin obscure.]?
It's the androgynous given-name thing -- I finally got fed up with being
gender-bent across the Web half the time, and decided that Freemartin was
the best compromise.
I was going to quote the OED2(3) definition, but as you've done it for me, I
needn't bother.
Oh incidentally, the term predates the 17thC -- there's a weird 16thC diary
entry on an Italian actress in London which describes her as a freemartin.
And it's been extended from simply cattle to virtually every
sexually-diffentiated species -- ninety-five percent of the inhabitations of
a beehive are freemartins.
Huxley (where I first came on the term in my far-off youth) uses it in
_Brave New World_.
Shall I go on?
A Pedantic Freemartin.
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