When are extremely metal-deficient galaxies extremely metal-deficient?
  Extremely metal-deficient (XMD) galaxies, by definition, have oxygen
abundances \le 1/10 solar, and form a very small fraction of the local
gas-rich, star-forming dwarf galaxy population. We examine their positions in
the luminousity-metallicity (L-Z) and mass-metallicity (M-Z) planes, with
respect to the L-Z and M-Z relations of other gas-rich, star-forming dwarf
galaxies, viz., blue compact galaxies (BCGs) and dwarf irregular (dI) galaxies.
We find that while the metallicities of some low-luminousity XMD galaxies are
consistent with those expected from the L-Z relation, other XMD galaxies are
deviant. We determine the 95 per cent confidence interval around the L-Z
relation for BCGs, and find that its lower boundary is given by 12 + log(O/H) =
-0.177 M_{B} + 4.87. We suggest that a galaxy should be regarded as XMD, in a
statistically significant manner, only if it lies below this boundary in the
L-Z plane. Of our sample of XMD galaxies, we find that more than half are XMD
by this criterion. We also determine the gas mass fractions and chemical yields
of galaxies in all three samples. We find that the effective chemical yield
increases with increasing baryonic mass, consistent with what is expected if
outflows of metal-enriched gas are important in determining the effective
yield. XMD galaxies have lower effective yield than BCG/dI galaxies of similar
baryonic mass. Motivated by the fact that interactions are common in XMD
galaxies, we suggest that improved (tidally-driven) mixing of the interstellar
media (ISM) in XMD galaxies leads to a lowering of both, the measured
metallicity and the calculated effective yield. We suggest that XMD galaxies
are deviant from the L-Z relation because of a combination of being gas-rich
(i.e., having processed less gas into stars) and having more uniform mixing of
metals in their ISM.
