From: utzoo!decvax!yale-com!bj
Newsgroups: net.misc
Title: Re: Psychological distance
Article-I.D.: yale-com.604
Posted: Thu Jun 17 16:15:02 1982
Received: Sat Jun 19 04:41:06 1982

I would not blame the special names for animal flesh to people trying
to obtain "distance" between the animals and the flesh.  I think the
reason is that there was no attempt for a "consistent naming scheme"
[English was not "made", it "grew"].  Words came into existence
because people felt a need to describe something without a name.

The names beef and veal both apply to cows but mean different things.
"Cow meat" is further broken down by the part of the cow it comes from.
Pork comes from a pig, but so does bacon and neither pork or bacon is
a pig. Venison now is used to mean deer meat but it originally meant
"the meat of a game animal" and even included ducks.  Chicken and duck
are refered to directly because the they are usually served whole rather
than cut up.
					B.J. (decvax!yale-comix!herbison)