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A comment on A History of the Sentence "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo." (1999-2015). Parent comment

Re:A History of the Sentence "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffal... by pdpi on Thursday November 08, 2018 @08:51AM (#18406200)
Definitely better than puppy, but not quite specific to lions.
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Re:A History of the Sentence "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffal... by code_duck on Thursday November 08, 2018 @10:17AM (#18406776)
It’s specific to lions, just not exclusive to lions.
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Re:A History of the Sentence "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffal... by pbhjpbhj on Thursday November 08, 2018 @11:54AM (#18407656)
Ooh, pedantry, my kind of thread:

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/specific

I think it fails on most if not all definitions of specific.

"Lion cub" is specific, lion and cub are both specifiers. But "cub" is specific to juveniles of a range of species; so I'd say "not specific to lions".

Interesting then to think which species do have specific English single-word names for juveniles. Owlets, foals, and joeys spring to mind ...

French has louveteau for a wolf cub, perhaps it has a specific lion cub word too? I'd imagine Kiswahili to have a specific word, perhaps?

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