From: utzoo!decvax!cca!hplabs!menlo70!nsc!miker@sri-unix Newsgroups: net.misc Title: Psychological Distance Article-I.D.: nsc.180 Posted: Mon Jun 21 10:48:03 1982 Received: Sun Jun 27 00:53:56 1982 I missed some of the early discussion about psychological distance because we seem to have been disconnected from the net for a while, but nonetheless I will add my contribution. The reason I have always heard for the two different words for live and dead animals is that it dates from the period after the Norman Conquest when two different languages were spoken in England: French by the aristocracy and English (or Anglo-Saxon) by the peasants. Thus the peasants who raised the animals called them 'ox', 'sheep', 'calf', 'pig' whereas the aristocrats who ate them called them 'boeuf', 'mouton', 'veau' and 'porc'. I don't know why chickens have no alternate name except to venture that they might be typically more lower class food as they can be raised cheaply on a farm. An interesting example of psychological distance in this respect dates from my youth in Australia where I remember that shark was called 'flake' when sold as food. I noticed some in the supermarket here recently and it was labelled 'shark', but here there is not really the same danger from sharks that people are aware of in Australia.