有沒有發現，英語里某個動物和它的肉經常不是一個詞。特別是我們人類常食用的肉類，這點尤為明顯。俗話說羊毛出在羊身上，那為什么肉的名稱就和它“主人”的名稱不一樣呢？

William the Conqueror(征服者威廉), the Duke of Normandy（諾曼底）, invaded and conquered England and the Anglo-Saxons in 1066.

And in the early part of this period, French, spoken by the Normans, replaced English as the official language in England, while English was only used by the lower class. Numerous French words came into the English vocabulary. One interesting phenomenon was that the animals began to have different names from their meat because they were raised by servants who spoke English, and so kept the English names. The meat gained a French name when it was served to the French-speaking masters. For example, “pig” became “pork”, “sheep” became “mutton” and “cattle” became “beef”. In some way, we can suppose that is a symbol of hierarchical rules.

By the way, after the Black Death（黑死病時期，1349-1350年蔓延與歐亞兩洲的鼠疫）, the laboring and merchant classes grew in economic and social importance, and along with them English increased in importance compared to French. English evolved gradually into what is now referred to as Middle English（中期英語）.

（來源：英語國家概況，外研社，略有刪改）