Talking cock in the Year of the Rooster

SOMETHING I've been thinking about, amid the pineapple tarts and bak kwa: Is it just me, or have roosters gotten the short end of the stick, at least in the English language? I mean, how many other birds -- or animals, for that matter - have such a smutty double entendre for a secondary name?

I'm referring, of course, to the rooster's original moniker - the cock. According to the book, Word Origins --penned by the Bloomsbury English Dictionary's Chief Etymologist, John Ayto - the word "cock" is likely of onomatopoeic origin, imitative of the male fowl's call. Ayto gives the example of :cock-a-doodle-doo" in English, coquerico in French, and kikeriki in German. Across the seas, there's also cuc-cu in Vietnamese, and Arabic's ko-ko.

Beyond those aural associations, though, it's hard to be sure where the word "cock" comes from. "It reflects similar words in other languages, such as medieval Latin coccus and Old Norse kokkr, but which if any the English word was borrowed from is not clear," writes Ayto.