有没有发现，英语里某个动物和它的肉经常不是一个词。特别是我们人类常食用的肉类，这点尤为明显。俗话说羊毛出在羊身上，那为什么肉的名称就和它“主人”的名称不一样呢？

William the Conqueror(征服者威廉), the Duke of Normandy（诺曼底）, 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（黑死病时期，1349-1350年蔓延与欧亚两洲的鼠疫）, 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（中期英语）.

（来源：英语国家概况，外研社，略有删改）

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