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.