354: beef pork mutton and venison Nov 27, 2015

With inspiration drawn from yesterday, here is a short analysis of words for meats. Most words for meats in other languages are the same as the type of animal. In English, 'turkey', 'chicken', 'lamb', and 'fish' are all (in the singular) words for meat. Other words, like 'beef', 'pork' and 'mutton' are all from French, when the only people who had the money for meat were Normans. The word 'venison', however, comes from neither the Norman-French, nor the name of the animal; it comes from from the Latin, 'venari' meaning ‘to hunt.’