Names for meat

[sarah.t]

Ok, so does anyone know why if meat from a lamb is called lamb and chicken is chicken, why do we give a different name to meat from a cow (beef) and pigs (pork)?

[bernardo]

But we also have different names for lamb (mutton) and chicken (poultry). The difference is from the hierarchical class structure of mediaeval society, in which the Norman French feudal barons and aristocracy used French words for the food, and the Anglo-Saxon bumpkins and peasasnts used English words for the animal.

[sarah.t]

Thanks, I was considering the normal / popular use of names, e.g. in the context of roast dinner. So its just that as our language developed some meats retained a French and Anglo Saxon name whereas others didn't?

[Senga-Marie]

I love the way the Germans unsquemishly call pork 'Swine flesh'

[Lizzy]

Sorry bernardo but isn't mutton meat from sheep as opposed to lamb (baby sheep)... Oh and poultry is a word used that covers chickens and turkeys. I haven't a clue about the rest of it and I'm ashamed to say I work on a farm!

[Darius]

bernardo - sorry thats cack! The name can also change according to the age of the meat - hence, lamb becomes mutton after the animal is one year old; a chicken under one year is a poussain and so on. The names given also depends on whether the meat is cooked or uncooked. Frency cookery terms have come to be used, not because of any tosh over class distinctions; rather that French cooking during the 18th and 19th century developed in style and sophistication and became accepted across the Channel

[Canib]

It is problematic when we want to trace word origins as it leads us to an old word that just has us wondering where that one originated. Tower of Babel, I suppose. That being said, here is what the OED says: chicken comes from the Middle Dutch kiekijn. lamb comes from the old English l�mb, which is said to relate to the old words in several European languages. Beef comes from the French b�uf which in turn came from the Latin bov-em. Pork comes from the Latin porc-us which means swine, hog. I have no idea how helpful that is, but cest le vie.

[sarah.t]

thanks, but that still doesn't really answer the question as to why we don't call just cows the animals 'beef' and pigs the animals 'pork' ?