Animal Advocacy Language
Language is important and always evolving.
A choice of words can create an opportunity to draw readers closer or to push them away. To educate and alienate. Words can traumatize, minimize and trivialize, as well as promote, enthuse and encourage.
At Animally we strive to protect the individuality of all beings and avoid othering where possible, whilst still meeting the reader where they are so that we may advocate and educate for the betterment of all.
We may at times use commonly used terms for which we do not advocate, so that readers may find our work and enter the conversation.
Why Do You Use Those Words?
Industry Euphemisms
The commonly used term 'farm animals' would be to suggest that their identity is that of belonging to a farm, their purpose. We can hypothesize that animals would, if they could, choose another fate other than being confined, exploited and killed for human benefit.
Being farmed is how we accurately describe what we are imposing upon them, not their individuality or identity.
Farmed Animals
Names that obscure or obfuscate the animal origin are common in animal agriculture. Let's look a little deeper
A bovine is a single individual of the species Bos taurus, and the term is biologically neutral—it doesn’t specify sex, age, or human imposed use. Bovine is the term Animally would hope to normalise.
In contrast, cattle is a collective term that refers to the group as a whole, not an individual. Within that species, the familiar words are sub‑categories of bovines: a
cow is an adult female
bull is an adult male that is not castrated
ox is a trained exploited bovine (usually a castrated male)
steer is a castrated male raised for meat
heifer is a young female that hasn’t calved
calf is a juvenile.
All of these are bovines, and when you have many of them together, cattle is the collective noun.
Animally will at times use the term "cow" or "cows" to refer to members of the bovine species to encourage those that are unfamiliar with the etymology to engage in discussions of animal protection.
Beef
Non-Human Animal / Other-than Human Animal
The English word beef comes from Old French boef, adopted into Middle English before 1300, during the period after the Norman Conquest. French‑speaking Norman elites ate the meat, while English‑speaking Anglo‑Saxon peasants raised the animals, creating a linguistic split: the living animal kept its Germanic name (cow), but the meat took the French term (beef). This separation between the animal name and the meat name softens the connection to the slaughtered animal, which is why “beef” functions as a euphemism: it replaces the blunt, emotionally loaded animal term with a socially elevated, foreign‑derived culinary term.
Bovines are not "beef", they are individuals, not the product we use them for. Animally occasionally uses the phrase "beef" purely for readers familiar with the term to find our information on how we can prevent their exploitation.
Bovine
Humans are animals.
Animalia is the kingdom of taxonomy that contains amongst others, humans, pigs, chickens, cows and wasps.
The recognition of all animals that aren't human is an important distinction. Animally recognises this distinction, but will more often use the term "animals" to refer to all members of the animalia kingdom that are not human.
Our reasoning is that those yet to be exposed to the suffering of non-human animals often do not see the distinction in the terminology. They may see "animals" as "others", and as such we may use their language to better engage in that discussion.
