this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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No Stupid Questions

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When I eat chicken, I call it chicken. Chicken wing; chicken drumsticks etc.

When I eat lamb, I call it lamb. Lamb shank; lamb cutlets.

So why do I not eat pig or cow? I eat pork or beef. Is there a reason for that?

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[–] [email protected] 178 points 1 year ago (5 children)

My understanding is that the difference in terms goes back to the Norman invasion, which is when a ton of French-based terms for things were carried over.

The peasants referred to everything as the name of the animal but the French nobles referred to it as porc, boeuf, etc. This is also where we got the words for venison, mutton, veal, poultry, and also apparently pheasant

[–] [email protected] 61 points 1 year ago

To add to this, the rich (i.e., French-speaking) consumed the most butchered meat, by far. So, it came to be that butchered meat for sale would be labeled in French, while the live animals, which were tended by (English-speaking) peasents retained their English names.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

@whenigrowup356 Yup. And then you have the New World animals where we use the name of the animal for both the animal and the meat, like buffalo.

@nydas

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

And then we have foods like Buffalo wings. English is fun.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Buffalo wings are named for Buffalo, NY, where they were invented.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I thought this was named after the city.

Like a Chicago dog.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Buffalo in english is a weird word, because it's an animal, a city and an action, which is why the phrase "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo" is one of the weirdest things I've ever heard, but completely correct english.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I guess the reason why it is "chicken" and not "poulet" or something, is because chicken was allready the poor man's meat back than?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

From what I can work out, yep it seems that way. Pork and beef were too expensive for the peasants so they just referred to them as the animals they were raising, but chickens were actually on their menu so we ended up keeping the animal words for it. We still got the word for pullet (young hen) though.

I just read a theory that poisson, french for fish, didn't come over because it sounded too much like poison, but who knows if that's true lol.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

We do have "poultry" as a catch-all for domestic birds. Not exactly the same as beef/cow, but definitely has a Norman connection.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Piggybacking off of this, "venison" comes from a Latin word meaning "to hunt" and was originally used as more of a catch-all term for game meats. You might have deer venison, boar venison, rabbit venison, etc. Over time it came to mostly be used to refer to deer

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

My country had not been invaded by the Normans and we speak completely different language, yet we don't call it pig or cow either.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you don't mind my asking, which language is yours?

It's an interesting question to ponder which different languages ended up with distinction words for the meat vs the living animal, and maybe what that says about the culture.

The distinction is not a feature of French, from what I understand, and English ending up with this distinction seems to have been entirely accidental.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It's Czech. It also applies to Slovakian.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My country also has not been invaded by the Normans but we call pig a pig and cow a cow.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Where are you from, if you don't mind me asking?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

South-Eastern EU. Not going any more particular than that :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Ok, no problém.