Stosh

Youre quite right about this not involving 'willpower' , as I understand what youre getting at , one certainly is bypassing certain mental gyrations. I came across my own version of this idea when I was trying to get a handle on just what exactly " willpower" was, and whether one was in some state of dearth- lack-inequipment- ineptitude ,that perhaps some other people had. So in short , yes , If I get you correctly ,, I agree, this the door to fixing quite a lot of what ails. Repeatedly one sees practitioners of some discipline or other , who are educated on the subject , having clear goals and aspirations , and yet ,, are making no lasting progress towards them. They backslide and lose sight of that which they actually HAD correct! Why would that be ? one might ask. And I feel , without explaining my take on it , that this is because they are setting themselves against themselves , instead of taking the route of clarity that you are circumscribing. As for the texts which discuss this ? Ha Ha Ha , Theyre all over the place here Sir! You probably know a huge deal of it already Just to get TO the ideas you are working now, means you have a strong background in the subject! Please just reread the classics , in a new light you can shine on them now. You and I may not meet precise in our definitions , words are but vague fingers pointing at moons, but in the general thrust of your discoveries , Id say you are well directed,, but thats just my opinion , ( and as everyone says, "opinions are like XXX-XXXXX, everyone has one ....as I see it You are teaching yourself a path to peace and clarity , who could be more convincing to you than that, and to the extent that this works , " who is it that should undermine it, discredit it , redirect you , correct you towards following the plan they execute for themselves?" ) Anything someone else has to attest to , you might shed suspicion on ,, one may also shed suspicion on themselves ,, in a world of uncertainty and change,, one will flounder if they cant at least say , This works for me! this is mine!

I may be on the other side of the fence to Zanshin on this one, I think the paradigm does have potential to explain what is being meant by various sources. Its an idea to spend time with and get to know, (keep in mind im not in the 'squash the ego' crowd , and I dont know how far this paradigm extends in that direction ) If the goal is,, as mentioned,, to, -not to be held hostage to the vagaries of pavlovian emotional counterpunches- , nor , to maintain the self destructive and self defeating effects of traditional socialization , nor to remain in the grip of illusions which are best reexamined ... and instead is geared towards a calm clear perspective about ones values , relationships , life roles etc,, then ,,, Id say its a fine way to look at things. Some emotions people enjoy , like pride , sometimes anger , righteousness etc,, have a downside in the way they figure into folks lives. Having control and wisdom about what one is going to magnify , play -up , enhance ,, vs what one is going to minimize , correct , avoid ,,, is empowerment . This is the best most appropriate use of 'will' that there can be. I like the idea that Zanshin or yourself can enjoy the good things life offers as full as they can be enjoyed.. and yet at the same time , that yall can minimize the inevitable 'rainclouds which unto each life doth fall'. Maybe y'all can, or both do , embrace this cherrypicking perspective , but I just wanted to lay it out in a different way.

Having now the luxury of some time to recheck the provided info, Ive noticed some things pertinant to my stance which Id like to point out. On page four of Ritchie’s 2010 paper, In the footnote , she too! says the cup isnt all that important despite the inscription. “does not affect my conclusions on the texts, since all my evidence can be viewed independently of the cup‘s inscription, and works regardless of the tomb occupant‘s title”. Now, If I were trying to formulate a scenario which pointed to the prince as being advised by the text contents, Id want the cup very much to be read indicating the tomb occupant to have been an actual tutor of the prince. Itd really help to solidify her arguments,,but , if it turns out that Ling and Hao carry the day, she still tries to conclude that the prince was instructed by the texts , giving the reason that the advice appears to be geared to do exactly that , (when construed to read that it takes a sympathetic rather than antagonistic stance vs the princes position ) Now , if Im assigned to tutor the prince , the texts Id have would have a venue, for its presentation.. It in fact would be my JOB to give him that sort of direction. It would be condoned accepted etc. If I am just some aristocrat , my advice is umm ancillary. I could suggest some good reads , but its not really my job to push the points home. I suppose and advisor could do that too, but then the advisor is functioning as a tutor more or less ,,and we’re back where we started from.. If I gave him the books , then they wouldn’t be in the tomb. So then these texts , if I am not a tutor but an advisor or just a vague acquaintance,,, were kept by me to inform me firstly , and my opinions are pretty much just what I happen to divulge if we are hanging out together. Can we say, that M1 was a learned man , without the texts? I think you could , generally speaking it appears that regular class distinctions would dictate that he’d have gotten some sort of education. Also then, with the the texts, which were in his tomb ,( not a tiny collection), probably for his own use, and focused on philosophy statescraft and morality,,one could reasonably be led to the idea he was interested in these academic -oriented subjects, to some degree or other. (He doesn’t stand out for this though.) Books-texts of any content, were considered status items , everything else about the tomb seems to revolve around status, so why not consider the books primary as status markers , and only secondarily preferred subject matter of the interred. Among the rich , in any age , there are those who live off the proceeds of their properties , the deeds of their parents ,and whilst they themselves are basically idle , they may have hobbies which they may indulge in. I am not vilifying the man for this, but it may just be that he never held a real job, and he may have not understood at all, what he read ! ,, or he may have.. it’s just not something which is “safe” to assume. .. ..ex: From my own grave, I expect there will be nothing at all to indicate the various roles jobs ,successes ,and failures ,that accurately would portray my livelihood. While the contents grave may , yes , relate to the person whose final resting place it is..the connections between the contents and what they really meant about me is most likely purely nonspecific . The specific role or talents or interests of M1 needs specific indicators. Most informative of all would be name to attach to events outside the tomb. I found a brief description of several tomb discoveries , they don’t precisely match up with date and place of M1 , but one can at least gather , that the reading material tends to contain at least something which is philosophy statescraft and morality oriented,, if there is text, and there is text in tombs of folks who are possibly not tutors. ( at least one was figured to be an administrator and another a general ) So what one should more solidly say , than possibly a tutor of the prince , should be .. “He was an aristocrat educated in the philosophy of Confucious and Lao, and may have brought some of those teachings to the attention of Prince Qingxiang (but that’s purely speculative). “ Everyone should still be comfortable with that ,, though theres no proof whatsoever that he even knew the prince. J .

Mozuizi (磨嘴子) Yinqueshan Han Slips Shuihudi Qin bamboo texts Shuanggudui Zhangjiashan Han bamboo texts Fangmatan Guodian Chu Slips Shanghai Museum corpus Zoumalou (走馬樓) Yinwan (尹灣) Liye (里耶) Tsinghua Bamboo Slips Wiki has these major finds listed under bamboo strips , I suppose there are others , no, the date and places arent all that close. I also read that somewhere between -400 and -300 , paper showed up , is that right? if so , the strips themselves would be possibly anachronistic. (Im figuring paper might not preserve as well) Besides that , I have no idea what 'classes' the tombs occupants might fall into per (Shaughnessy) , what the condition of the tombs were etc. I need to run , but Id like to respond to a few things later or tomorrow ,and consider what youve already indicated.

The deceased appears to have been an old man, possibly the tutor of a Chu prince. The evidence for any particular identification is weak. Nevertheless, the slip-texts found in the tomb are all philosophical writings: regardless of whether or not the deceased was the tutor to the Crown Prince of Chu, these are not standard mortuary items; both their form and content suggest that they were some sort of personal library that belonged to the deceased in his lifetime. Im not exactly adverse to what youre saying either , but as this author says , the evidence is weak. And while she is attesting to her opinion , she isnt giving any reason why we should consider her opinion correct (here). Mr Wong spends a bit of time explaining , unless I am confused, that the original writings around -600 of Confucious and Lao , while they had generally not found their way to Chu by fifty years later , were not bizzarre to find in Chu at the time of the burial. This sounds straight forward to me , and Im taking it at face value. I think it can be strongly corroborated. I believe the intended point ,was that the texts confirm the date of burial , (or at least do not contradict it circa -300.) So Im really just taking his own word for the availability of such stuff at that time. He also takes the time to describe the trapezoid shape and sizes of the material, which S.Allen may be ascribing as indicating either professional or emotional or intellectual meaning regarding the owner. But like I said , whatever size and shape they had , doesnt conform to any rule wich makes a connection between their characteristics and his personal attitudes about them . I also gave reason why the content may or may not be reasonably taken to indicate his personal views, but Ill restate it , if I may , that if he were the wine steward , and someone dumped their own stash in his tomb, one would still take the content as if it indicated an owners preference,, which it might be !.......... just not the owner at the time of the funeral. Her point , that such writing , would be atypical mortuary items , does make a sound argument ,affirmatively pointing to the idea that the tomb owner had a special affiliation with the texts which precipitated their entombment with him. The other authors did not say that. .. And Which is exactly what I have been fruitlessly hunting to find out ,, "what was exactly the standard tomb contents of Upper shi lower dafu deceased in Chu at that time?" ,I asked myself ,, because it appears, that there are some stiff rules to which the tombs were expected to conform for example number of coffins and size of mound etc.. but frankly I dont know which would be most unusual to find , the buckle , the chariot wheel , the text , the inscribed cup. ( I dont have the full list of items) If the oddest thing they found , the numerically most unique thing , is not the texts , should we conclude that his vocation was therefore not one of tutor? Would you think any of these authors would finally drop the tutor angle , stop even mentioning it , and adopt the phrase , "He was probably an accountant" ? ( or something else his rank would allow) Seriously , if the oddest item is not the texts will- would you personally conclude that he was clearly not a tutor? If you still wouldnt let go of the tutor claim, then Allens comment about the uniqueness of the texts would not being taken seriously as indicative of the mans vocation by you either.. And in that case you could be selectively choosing to agree depending upon the conclusion regarding his calling. That would be bias , and the of the greatest 'sins' one can come to ,as an honest researcher , IMO. Frankly , I just cant tell whether these various authors are coming to this conclusion independently or if they have been all biased to strictly concern themselves with tutoring , and the inscription. Like I said way back , the idea is juicy , and no one really wants it to be supplanted with " we just dont know what he did for a living, beats the heck out of me!" nope , they guess the guess that has be prepared for them. They just cant resist it ! Have a great weekend Dawei.

<p>The mixed nature of the texts can easily be attributed to various circumstances ,</p> <p> 1 that was the nature of the popular culture of the day so theres nothing particularly selective about the contents.</p> <p>2 they were purchased in ecclectic fashion by someone who knows nothing about the stuff like a servant, expressly for the purpose of stocking the tomb.</p> <p>3 purchaser found a seller somewhere and said ,, Ill buy the whole lot of it., I havent got all day.</p> <p>( notice in case 3 that the selection of the writings may reflect the interests of the seller , or similarly , anything 'missing' was actually the interests of the seller, leaving the dross to be sold for tomb decoration)</p> <p>4 the collection belonged to a beloved relative or admirer who didnt have enough status to stick the stuff in his own tomb and brought it with him to the funeral.</p> <p>or we can be creative ..</p> <p>5 the grave robbers who opened the thing collected them from another site , and stashed them in M1 temporarily</p> <p>( still dont get how the contents remained if the tomb was pilfered by grave robbers and... where is the body?)</p> <p> </p> <p>By the way , I have the same idea in respect that its for the researchers to do a thorough investigation of the data before jumping to unwarranted conclusions. But I do understand that the site is far more compelling if it can be tied to specific people. </p> <p>As Ive hunted for more data on the tomb , I basically found most folks parroting with various degrees of caution about the deceased's occupation and the implications drawn exactly in step with Mr Wong, Like (Ritchie). I suspect there is more written in chinese , but doubt any of those papers have any reason to shake the mystique of the venerable tutor off and draw the occupant as a wealthy layabout connected to folks in high places allowing him to overstep his ordinary class associations.</p> <p>Like Ive indicated earlier, I just do not know what the man did for a living , was he lazy ? a leech , a cruel conniving elitist ? or perhaps a sagely old man in the tradition of Lao , brought to court to help in the tutlege of an aspiring prince. the tomb contents may shed a light on whether he preferred Lao A,B-C to the more confucian models. <img class="bbc_emoticon" src="http://thetaobums.com/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.png" title=":)" /> But that too is Largely speculative ! ain't it?</p> <p> </p> <p>In defense of various researchers, I say I understand it takes a huge amount of effort to find out that which is solidly to be concluded , and also that there is a great deal of pressure to come up with a juicy story, so you can write books or be taken note of.. and even than one doesnt know what fresh facts are to come out later... but on the same note, if one has spent all that time trying to arrive at reliable facts , saying , "undoubtedly" , as if the truth of a fact should not be in need of any rationale, sends up a red flag to me , that it is precisely this idea which <u>cannot</u> be substantiated. This word popped up regarding the occupants affinities for the texts and this is precisely where the inflection point lies between the guy being an anonymous lesser noble and a tutor of royalty. Its not like the texts were in a gold lined case , or buried wrapped in its owners arms. They were in a pile some where, probably on the floor.</p> <p> </p> <p>The temptation or propensity for saying things that are "safe" is pernicious IMO., if it is merely a rehash of what is standarly said such as the vertical schema thing. One might as well just write 'ditto' , and hand in their thesis. What one ends up with is a stubborn wall of doctorates that havent actually investigated what they are agreeing with. To me, as Ritchie outlined it , ummmm it sounds like total Bullshit.. but thats just me. <img class="bbc_emoticon" src="http://thetaobums.com/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.png" title=":)" /> I may be here sounding less than generous and I guess thats true ,I may have set a bar too high in my expectations but I just feel that if there is anywhere one should really be trying to identify facts vs speculation its in the court of the scholarly community.</p> <p>I do believe one can hold a positon of equananimity and yet still arrive at reasonable asumptions of less than concrete character. If just about any challenging speculation seems equally plausible ,, that one has no real reason to exclude it as being a rather unlikely scenario. I dont think one should feel that theyve come to sturdy conclusions .</p>

I want to say more later but want to pop this in before I get to work , in case you check in here, .. So what makes you lean toward this being a learned person? The reason I ask , is that its basically the same assumption, that Ritchie and Wong made , and never gave reason for. Yes,, upper shi and Dafu could be understood to have been well lettered in general - but that in itself is no reason to view the documents in the tomb as indicating he was especially educated , and would serve as a tutor. The way things end up in tombs , may often be taken as indicative of the individuals propensities, but that doesnt conclusively mean that the assumptions are true. I think there was also a jade belt buckle , a chariot wheel , and lots of other stuff... so if he was a tutor as you suspect , then this other stuff is contra indicated as being especially indicative of the mans profession. Could it be said that every guy whose tomb contains a pile of texts ..was a tutor? I dunno.

Maybe he means that folks want to think they are ignorant and blameless to what is going on rather than learning disabled. Pretending one doesnt know any better , that one is fine ignoring the plight of others , say,, re: starving kids in africa, lets one off the hook for a multitude of things , rather than admit ones self-centeredness. Niggling in the back of ones mind there remains the truth that you Do know and it can undermine. Dealing with ones responsibility or lack of ,, can reveal

Its still about the piddly five pound ticket IMO, you were supposed to pay the thing , didnt ,and then it went off the chart. Thats exactly what I mean by ratcheting a tiny thing into a bigger one. The fact that the ticket was five pounds, and not fifty thousand ,, may seem like it undermines the justification of the intensity of the reaction to your non-payment ... but as Im looking at it , it just undermines the ease at which you could have been done with the issue months ago. Pay the freekin ticket , the new court costs youve probably incurred , say yessir to the judge when you are spoken to .. and then never have the issue happen again because you just pay the damn five pounder. That there is within your power to do, and the result is that the rhino can find no place in which to stick a horn. Be such a model citizen that you get elected to office and be the pain in everyone elses arse.

I dont think its logical to want to kill someone over a five pound ticket. Tiny issues like this are really best looked at with perspective. Theres a cost of doing business , today it may be in the form of a parking ticket Tomorrow it may be a tax hike. Generally speaking , tidbits such as these do not have much of an impact on a persons life unless the poor suffering mistreated 'victim' overreacts and spins the issue into one much larger. Getting angry often just presents an illusion to oneself that one is not powerless vs the entire govt structure and society as a whole. And thats bullshit , you are powerless , relatively speaking . Laws can be absolutely anything , and youre right that they often have little to do with any logic other than the point is to keep the populace in check, one goody two shoes thinks they know what everyone else should do. But thats the situation we were born into, starting with that , rather than thinking one has some right to treatment such as they would desire it to be youve got the option to ratchet every little hump and inconvenience into a big offense against your dignity. To me personally , the silly little ticket you got for some piddly offense doesnt look like a massive kick in the pants demanding retribution and bemoanment of the wretched fate youve been doomed to endure. No,, to me ,,the crazy looking part is the thinking that death is a proper response for getting hit up for five pounds. Its not that I'd like getting a ticket either , I wouldnt ,,, and its not that I think society is some perfect state of utopia ,, its certainly not ... Its just that I think its the EXPECTATION that society SHOULD be some utopia where wisdom justice and kindness always prevails is actually an idealistic self torturing device. I am not perfect like that , no one else is either, and there really is no reason why I should think its even possible for the world to run that way.

Oh thats really well done TL !

Yes, theyre unfinished wheels. Clearly They arent bananas. If I had a tire with a hole in it , is it still a tire? Do they still charge the disposal fee?

After reading the first sixty odd pages , Id say agree with the point about whether the occupant was shi or dafu , that it was moot re: whether he could have tutored the prince as exampled on pg 26. But on pg 28 it appears that he says all shi or fu were of dafu class still on that page, shi or fu could have been synonymous (or maybe not). whereas earlier it seemed that Shi and dafu were distinct classes as expressed by the number of coffins. IMO Either they were distinct classes or they werent., either shi or fu were different titles or they were not. It doesn’t matter either way though.. About the cup, either the inscription can be clearly read, or it cant. The two debated readings differ a great deal.. and that’s odd , Ill explain why.. He may have got the cup as a memento for tutoring if it says bei, and he may have got it for tutoring there , as a memento if it says he was a tutor of the prince there, (shi). . And the issue of whether he could have been tutor there revolves around whether he was upper shi or lower dafu. And neither thing matters , because he may have been a fu as an upper shi OR as a dafu And if you found a lacquered cup with no inscription in the tomb of a shi tutor , you still might figure he got it as a memento for tutoring someone important. Its like a railroad track , no matter what way you look at this item , inscription , no inscription, either reading of the inscription , status of the bearer, lower or higher. All the roads lead to the same thing. So the cup isn’t important, IMO, inscribed or not. Its meaning is based on the suspicion that the guy was a tutor based on his imagined affinity for the writings , or the cup indicates he was a tutor which sheds the light on the writings significance to him. Its a circular chain of assertion. Even without the cup altogether one could configure a connection to the prince at the time once you assume the guy is a tutor of Confucian thought. Is it possible to aviod either assumption to begin with? Sure! 290 items were buried there, so it could it be, that he was not a tutor. Just because the writings are the most popularly interesting items ,doesnt mean they were the most significant objects to the deceased. On page 31 he says ‘undoubtedly’ the strips were his favorite writings , his support for this is that such writings were of considered of great import ( on page 55) but there is no way to prove the import of the bamboo or, the man’s profession, other than just assuming it. He says himself on page 45 that no standardized account of the significance of the shape of the strips. And he also says the lengths have a general trend with larger size going to people of more import , and to an individual the more important had greater size , but there was no hard rule on this. Clearly ,,Whatever! strips the man had , they would have size and shape. So you cant say they were significant to him personally from a career biased perspective based on those factors. All you can say is that in general the things were widely treated as if they had importance and so, may end up in a tomb along with chariot wheels and staffs awarded for old age. No matter who! had a collection of such writings, the odds are that they would have been placed in the tomb( given sufficient standing) They wouldn’t indicate his profession conclusively , and so they don’t indicate support for either reading of the cups inscription which could both be totally way off the mark. he could perhaps been a master wine steward , for the prince, for all I know! Since there isn’t support for concluding he was the tutor of the prince , the content of the strips is not indicated as education aimed particularly at the prince. Since the popular teachings in Chu were essentially similar to those found in M1 , you cant say that there was special attention expended in gathering it for a burial in Chu in that time period. Since the strips are not all that similar in handwriting , you cant ascribe them all to the town scribe , nor to the tomb occupant. ( made for himself or by himself ) . Nor can you say there is anything peculiar in the subjects of morality human relations or Confucian state craft ( since Confucius was- after all -a bureaucrat. ) The conclusions do not make a solid argument , its entirely circumstantial ,, maybe some day they will be vindicated , but the circular reason being employed indicates a desire to know what isn’t revealed so far. Who knows what will crop up ? I still have a long way to read.

Thanks Dawei Ill check it out. .. Would you care to express an opinion on any of the conclusions offered by the author , or about that which is the subject at hand? or are you looking to neutrally not have one?

I read this through as well except for the appendices at the end. The paper starts out with a nice logical examination of the linguistics, and the historical reference was interesting , but the paper gets a bit off track in several spots like in deciding that the essential components of development of the yin and yang conceptry are conclusively based on ones original orienting experience. I dont find that the thought associations the author felt one would come to naturally is universal , inevitable , or in any way provable. going so far as to claim that one could list appropriate associations and even number! them to the extent of believing that exclusions could be noticed ummm... is losing sight of that which is factually based. My personal curiosity was peaked however at the ideas that were used to conclude that the person was a tutor or scribe for a royal based on the presence of the document in a tomb. If there was a silk in the tomb we should conclude the occupant was a weaver? Is the presence of specific types of items merely reflecting what was considered proper tomb accoutrement? Can one really decide what the advice of a tutor for a prince coming into power in difficult times should correctly be? and once one had decided what the "correct" advice would have been , are we forced to assume that the "correct" advice was that which was being promoted by the tutor?. I will take the linguistic arguments as being typical of those assumptions made by linguists.. so I wont critique whether he conclusions in regard to that ,are standard, or not. But in terms of deciding the occupation of the deceased , the origins of yin yang conceptry, or even the literacy! of the aforementioned deceased, I dont think this paper was successful in establishing an objective perspective on the Guodian texts.

Thats a nice unambiguous rendition 3deedit . (though the implication that the spokes recapitulate the physical geometry of the cup and arched entryway is a bit of a stretch,, and IMO misleads from the abstraction of emptiness in a way that undermines the text a bit ,,, but like I said , Im pleasantly affirmative of the text.) Im just wondering what specifically your new view of useful is MH,, vs what it was.

Yeah I love that clip , thought of it instantly ,,and the great thing about it, is that it doesnt hinder anyone from posting poems at all and it bumps the thread back up to the top of the list too ! Triple the goodness

Popping in a response to a possibly rhetorical or implied question .... (if individual is starting or endpoint) well , starting and endpoints are subjective or relative , being so, its illusion. One can consider their individuality or ego as the most important thing, or one can consider their unity with the great whole , as the important thing , or neither is the "important" thing . Which is why I consider all of these things to be true aspects of what we are. The core of an apple ,the flesh ,the skin and the seeds of an apple all comprise the apple , but they arent all homogenously same, the parts have their functions , even though they arent completely distinct. Ignoring that , one isnt appreciating what the apple is. Similarly , there is what you are , and you are unique, not a homogenous nothing indistinguishable from the rest of homogenous nothingness. You are the proof that the universe exists, whatever it is that you consider 'you' to be.

Spam is most often considered to be electronic junk mail or junk newsgroup postings. Some people define spam even more generally as any unsolicited email. However, if a long-lost brother finds your email address and sends you a message, this could hardly be called spam, even though it is unsolicited. Real spam is generally email advertising for some product sent to a mailing list or newsgroup. But yeah, its wandered off point. ( as water is wont to do) Please carry on

Cute use of language there. ( though I disagree that it was boring, since it was pertinant)

I found it interesting myself, it was on a web page which was trying to do a service by explaining very precisely the use of various bovine related terms ,, a sort of disambiguation. So the point of it was precisely , as you say, to be 'anal' for the moment.

Thats interesting , but I wasnt condemning it for pretentiousness, (which it could be, amongst non quakers which speak colloquial english.) Instead what I was getting at was that the adoption of the antiquated speech appears to indicate a personal disconnect between ones regular life and the spiritual associations they have.

Ive never had the opportunity to do either , so Im not concerned about that , but if one of those horned things was off on a hill, and I was unaware of its age gender and breeding status , Im thinking it would be correct to point out that 'cow' over there rather than get excessively vague and call it "the animal',, because the other person would likely say, What do you mean? The cow?

relevant definitions. These are: Cow: a mature female bovine that has given birth to at least one or two calves. Colloquially, the term "cow" is also in reference to the Bos primigenius species of domestic cattle, regardless of age, gender, breed or type. However for most people who work with or raise cattle, this term is not used in the same reference as previously noted. Bull: a mature, intact (testicles present and not removed) male bovine used for breeding purposes. Steer: a male bovine (or bull) that has been castrated before reaching sexual maturity and is primarily used for beef. Stag: a male bovine (or bull) that has been castrated after or upon reaching sexual maturity and is primarily used for beef, but can and is also often used as a "gomer bull" for detecting cows and heifers in heat. Heifer: a female bovine (often immature, but beyond the "calf" stage) less than 1 to 2 years of age that has never calved. Such females, if they've never calved beyond two years of age may also be called heiferettes. Bred Heifer: a female bovine that is pregnant with her first calf. First-calf Heifer or First-calver: a female bovine that has given birth to her first calf, and is often around 24 to 36 months of age, depending on the breed and when she was first bred. Ox (plural: Oxen): a bovine that is trained for draft work (pulling carts, wagons, plows, etc.)This is a term that primarily refers to a male bovine that has been castrated after maturity. However, an ox can also be female bovine (cow or heifer) or even a bull that has been trained for the same purpose. In the Biblical times, an ox was a general term used, just like with the term "cows," to a domesticated bovine regardless of age, gender, breed, type, or draft purposes. Calf (plural: Calves): an immature bovine (male and female) that is reliant on milk from its dam or from a bottle in order to survive and grow. A calf is known as such from birth to around 10 months of age. Bull calf: an immature intact male bovine (since all males are born with testes) that is reliant on milk from his dam or a bottle for growth and survival. Steer calf: an immature male bovine that has been castrated a few days to a couple months after birth, and is reliant on milk from his dam or a bottle for growth and survival. Heifer calf: an immature female bovine that is reliant on milk from her dam or a bottle for growth and survival. Freemartin: an infertile or sterile heifer or heifer calf. Such infertility is a result of being maternally twinned with a bull calf which placental tissues were shared in the womb. During the first trimester, reproductive organs start to form and sexual hormones begin to be produced in the fetus. When male and female fetal calves are twinned together, the testosterone produced by the male inhibits estrogen production in the female. This results in abnormal, underdeveloped or hermaphroditic reproductive organs in the female fetus. This is not so for the male. Freemartins are sometimes referred as "hermaphrodites" if they are born with reproductive organs of both genders. As a result, these type of freemartins tend to develop secondary male sexual characteristics (muscular crest over neck, wide forehead, etc.) upon reaching puberty. Cattle: general plural term for more than one bovine Cattlebeast/bovine/animal: a singular term for a bovine whose gender cannot be determined, particularly when viewed at a distance. Most people like to call a bovine of unknown (or "unknown") gender as a "cow," simply because it is a much more well-known and popular term to use than "bovine" or "cattlebeast." This, however, is often not the case around experienced cattlemen and cattlewomen or "ranchers" (as some like to call them) who never use the term "cow" when referring to a bovine that is anything but a cow. "Animal," "critter," "creature," or any other term, coarse or not, are most often used over the colloquial word "cow." Bulls are cows!.

Then its usually a steer , right, otherwise they can still be ,,, cows ( I thought cow applied to both though when referring to ,, cows)