Welcome to the 50th post of the Blog of Fire!
Wow. This is such a milestone. When I first started doing this thing, I didn't think I'd actually keep up with it. It's a good feeling to start doing something and to see yourself remain committed to it.
The Fall semester here at the University of Louisiana is officially back in full gear. I'm teaching two sections of English 101 this semester, as well as taking 3 classes. What this probably means is that I'll be learning things that I want to share with you on this blog. Just today in my Medieval Literature class I learned something quite fascinating that I would like to share with you now. Have you ever noticed that we have different words for the animals that we eat, depending on if we are referring to them as animals or as food:
chicken - poultry
cow - beef
calf - veal
pig - pork
sheep - mutton
Have you ever wondered why this is? I found out today. Before I tell you though, you need to know just a little bit about the history of England. (If you know all this already, I apologize for insulting your intelligence).
A long time ago there was a people group living in France called the Normans. They were originally of Scandinavian descent, but after settling in France they were pretty much assimilated into French culture. In the year 1066, these Normans, led by William the Conqueror, invaded England and conquered it. So for a number of centuries, England was essentially ruled by the French.
Thus, the French language became the language of the nobility, the upper classes, politics, academics, etc. Now, going back to that list of words above, all the animal words on the left come from Old English, while the food words on the right come from French. This is because at that time, only the upper classes ever got to eat meat. The lower classes would be lucky to eat meat once a year. Thus, the words that the French-speaking nobles used for those meats were the ones that stuck.
Pretty interesting, huh? I think so.
~Ken, Born of Fire
4 comments:
Wow, Kenneth. That is interesting. I guess I never thought about it because out in the country, we call things as we see them. My momma used to yell out "Hey kids, come eat some cow!" I have a theory that the phrase 'Don't have a cow' comes from back in the day, these bratty kids would have a fit, and their mom would say "Hey, if you don't start behaving, you don't get any cow tonight!" So it has evolved into, when someone freaks out, they say "Don't have a cow!"
That's interesting. I actually have my own theory about that phrase. I studied an earlier 20th century poet named Gertrude Stein recently, and she used the phrase "having a cow" to refer to doing a no. 2. In that case, "Don't have a cow," would mean, "Don't crap your pants," aka, "Don't freak out."
Yeah, you pretty much insulted my intellegence with this post.
At Nicholls, we get taught this kind of stuff as an undergraduate.
Seriously.
...of course i already knew about the Normans, but the language history was very interesting...
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