Bull

A bull is an intact (i.e., not castrated) adult male of the species Bos taurus (cattle). More muscular and aggressive than the female of the species, the cow, the bull has long been an important symbol in many cultures, and plays a significant role in both beef and dairy farming, and in a variety of other cultural activities.

Nomenclature

The female counterpart to a bull is a cow, while a male of the species which has been castrated is a steer, ox or bullock, although in North America this last term refers to a young bull, and in Australia to a draught animal. Usage of these terms varies considerably with area and dialect. Colloquially, people unfamiliar with cattle may refer to both castrated and intact animals as "bulls".

A wild, young, unmarked bull is known as a micky in Australia. Improper or late castration on a bull results in it becoming a coarse steer, also known as a stag in Australia, Canada and New Zealand. In some countries an incompletely castrated male is known also as a rig or ridgling.

Bull (2000 TV series)

Bull is an American drama series created by Michael S. Chernuchin. It was TNT's first original series, and was cancelled in the middle of Season 1. The show's name is in reference to the bull market, but the airing of the series coincided with the dot-com bubble crash that turned what had until then been a bull economy in the United States into a bear market.

Synopsis

Bull is about a group of Wall Street investment bankers that risk everything to break away from an established firm and start their own company. Leading the way is Robert "Ditto" Roberts III, the brilliant grandson of the founder of their former company who must betray his family heritage in order to stake a claim to his own life. His partners - Corey Granville, Marty Decker, Carson Boyd, Alison Jeffers and Marissa Rufo - each with a separate agenda, risk losing everything to join him in the new rival start-up firm that will answer the call of the new economy. With no financing, no clients and the rivalry of every player in town, the team's dreams rest on Hunter Lasky, the hard-hitting negotiations shark who has the potential to give the renegade team of Wall Street brokers the edge and legitimacy they need to succeed in the competitive world of high finance.

Bull (ka hieroglyph)

The ancient Egyptian Bull (hieroglyph), Gardiner sign listed no. E1, is the representation of the common bull. The bull motif is dominant in protodynastic times (see Bull Palette), and also has prominence in the early dynastic Egypt, famously on the Narmer Palette.

The common definition of bull (as a hieroglyph for language), as ka, relates to the 'bull'; other uses with additional hieroglyphs are: divine bull, "Great Bull", "Red Bull", etc.

Palermo Stone usage, 2390 BC

The bull (hieroglyph) figures prominently in the Palermo Stone of the 24th to 23rd century BC, (the annals and history of the previous ~700 years, ~3200 to 2280 BC). It has two motifs in the Palermo text, one being the "cattle count", a repeated theme for discussing a 'year-event' of an individual Pharaoh. The other theme using the bull (hieroglyph), is the recording of the Running of the Bull (the Apis Bull), for example "first 'running of the bull' ".

See also

References