EnglishClub ESL Forums

Please look at the words below regarding sex.

Male Female

manager manageress

dog bitch

tiger tigress

I am kind of surprised to learn these from grammar book. I am wondering whether "manager", "dog" and "tiger" can refer to female or not. Or perhaps use femal mananger to mean manageress etc?

Frank

You've identified the male and female terms. It is common English practice however to use the male terms to refer to both males and females.

There are cases however where the female name is the
one used genericaally

example

chicken (female)
instead of rooster (male)

cow (female)
instead of bull (male)

and there are cases where the common name is neither
male nor female

example

sheep

ram (male)
ewe (female)

Jack