Thanks, that's very interesting, as also your next post. I can see your
point about the androgynous name, and ought perhaps to have been able to
work that one out for myself.
What *really* annoys me, though, wherever I come across it, is 'origin
obscure'. I like to KNOW!
best joanna
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robin Hamilton"
> 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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