“In laboratory parlance, and even in print, the oocyte \u2026, ovum, zygote, morula and blastocyst<\/p>\n
are frequently referred to indiscriminately as the ‘egg’\u201d (Perry 1981:321).<\/p>\n
What’s wrong with eggs?\u00a0 As the quote indicates, the word egg is ambiguous.\u00a0 It can refer either to a female gamete by itself, the female gamete plus maternally derived tissues (e.g. a chicken egg), or to an early conceptus, as when we say an egg implants in the uterus.\u00a0\u00a0 In other words, the definition depends completely on context.<\/p>\n
Thus, using the word ‘egg’ conflates a female’s gametes with product of conception.\u00a0 This allows the two evolutionary very separate entities to be treated as the same thing.\u00a0 \u00a0This conceptual error may prevent us from seeing the different selection pressures on an ovum versus a zygote.<\/p>\n
What can you do?<\/strong>\u00a0 When talking about a female’s gametes you could use ova or ovum.\u00a0 When talking about the product of conception you could use zygote, blastocyst, morula, or conceptus.<\/p>\n Perry, J.S.\u00a0 1981.\u00a0 The mammalian fetal membranes.\u00a0 Journal of Reproduction and Fertility 62:321-335.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “In laboratory parlance, and even in print, the oocyte \u2026, ovum, zygote, morula and blastocyst are frequently referred to indiscriminately as the ‘egg’\u201d (Perry 1981:321). What’s wrong with eggs?\u00a0 As the quote indicates, the word egg is ambiguous.\u00a0 It can refer either to a female gamete by itself, the female gamete plus maternally derived tissues… Read More Eggs are for breakfast not for science?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2750,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-when-terms-go-wrong"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/reproduction-a-female-perspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/reproduction-a-female-perspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/reproduction-a-female-perspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/reproduction-a-female-perspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2750"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/reproduction-a-female-perspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/reproduction-a-female-perspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/reproduction-a-female-perspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions\/25"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/reproduction-a-female-perspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/reproduction-a-female-perspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/reproduction-a-female-perspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}