The invention of English
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What can one say in response to this barrage of anguished questions?
Selected readings
- "Where's the bull?" (6/2/15)
- "Problems with Japan's writing system, pt. 873" (5/5/24) — wagyu beef
- "Pork in a pot" (2/23/21)
- "Grilled sexual harassment" (5/5/13)
- "Pork floss Beckham" (8/10/21)
— just the tiniest tip of the iceberg when it comes to Chinese meat and animal names
[thanks to Laura Morland]
Chris Button said,
October 8, 2025 @ 1:17 pm
I would say "French"
edith said,
October 8, 2025 @ 2:05 pm
Wait 'til she learns of all the different words for groups of the same animal.
Let's not crow about murder.
Galal Walker said,
October 8, 2025 @ 2:25 pm
Grow up. The world does not exist for your convenience.
Laura Morland said,
October 8, 2025 @ 5:11 pm
@Galal Walker, maybe you don't get the humor?
Jessie brings up a great point: "Baby beef sounds too cruel to you? So you just change it into a totally different word so you won't be reminded when you eat them?"
Yes, thanks to the French, we can totally divorce ourselves from linking the image of a little calf gamboling in verdant hills from the veal on our plates. During my first year in France (before I gained fluency), I was walking with French friends in the countryside, and one of them pointed out some "veaux" in the distance.
I asked them, "Ils s'appellent veaux ? Comment vous les appelez quand vous les mangez ?" ("They are called veal? What do you call them when you eat them?")
I was actually shocked to discover the French use the same word for both.
P.S. Edith, excellent suggestion for a future video!
John Baker said,
October 8, 2025 @ 6:04 pm
The implication seems to be that Chinese lacks the plethora of synonyms and near synonyms, with often subtle variations in connotation, that are found in English. Is it really the case that in Chinese there would be no purpose to a thesaurus?
There is one mistake in the video: in contrast to veal, which refers exclusively to the meat of calves, lamb can refer either to a young sheep or to its meat. In my view, this weakens the argument that English speakers use different words in order to disassociate the meat from the animal – lambs have just as strong a hold on the imagination as cows and pigs.
David L said,
October 8, 2025 @ 8:43 pm
Years ago, I had a vegetarian friend who would say, if you ordered a burger, "hot dead cow again, is it?" Sounds like he would have taken easily to Chinese.
Andreas Johansson said,
October 9, 2025 @ 2:54 am
When we were younger, my brother and I (and our mother) used to annoy our sisters by referring to live horses as "horsemeat".
Joyce Melton said,
October 9, 2025 @ 4:30 am
It's even worse than that. Castrated cattle are called steers, and calves that have just been weaned are dogies.
Adult male swine are hogs, females are sows. Except that a dangerous hog is a boar, especially if it is wild. If it's wild, you can call a female a wild boar, too. You're not obliged to check its sex before it chomps on your leg. Young pigs are piglets if they are nursing, shoats if they are weaned.
Sheep are ewes if female, rams if not, but castrated sheep are wethers. And hey, let's not even get started on horses.
wgj said,
October 9, 2025 @ 4:47 am
This is another issue that the History of English Podcast has gone into some length explaining.
@David: The "dead" bit is unnecessary snark. One might respond that it's better to eat dead cow than to chew on living salad – for those leaves are very much alive, they can still perform photosynthesis and even cell division.
Scott Mauldin said,
October 9, 2025 @ 5:05 am
@wgj, please, those kinds of arguments are just snarky rearguard sophistry. Any rational moral framework finds that ceteris paribus it's better to kill fewer animals. The personal difference is whether that moral imperative is sufficient to warrant a change in behavior.
Tom said,
October 9, 2025 @ 5:20 am
I was always under the impression that the different names for meat from young vs mature animals was gustatory and not moral-emotive in origin. Veal is different from beef as lamb is different from mutton. "Lamb" is such an evocative word that I can't imagine anyone ordering lamb would have a less troubled conscience than someone ordering "young sheep".
wgj said,
October 9, 2025 @ 8:37 am
@Tom: "Lamb" may only be evocative for those having grown up with "Mary had a little lamb", (or Christian imagery generally, in which the lamb is assigned special symbolism), which is not even every native English speaker.
ajay said,
October 9, 2025 @ 9:05 am
My response to this video is "yes, it is confusing that in English we have two words for sheep, and a third one for when we turn one of the first two into food. But at least I know how to write all three of them…"
Seth Kazan said,
October 9, 2025 @ 11:45 am
@ajay, Not so sure, the use of the Latin alphabet by English borders on logography, the borderline case of ghothi meat is well known…
Chris Button said,
October 9, 2025 @ 3:35 pm
True. Reading English is more like reading Chinese than reading Spanish for example.
Philip Taylor said,
October 9, 2025 @ 4:18 pm
Seth — "the borderline case of ghothi meat is well known" — are you sure ? "Ghoti" as a possible spelling of "fish" I understand (enouGH, wOmen, loTIon), but how do you get to "meat" ?