Why are there words replaced for meat and animals instead of dead cow, beef?

Question

bILLIONS OF BIRDS WILL BE "cULLED" INSTEAD OF SLAUGHTERED DUE TO FEAR, WHY CAN'T WE CALL THINGS WHAt they reALLY ARE????

Answer 1

Because then people wouldn't eat it, which means people wouldn't buy it, which means that the people who want to exploit animals for their own profit wouldn't make any money. A**holes!

Answer 2

I think that you're right - it's all politics, isn't it?

I can answer your question about why meats are given different names. When the Normans (French) conquered England in the 11th century, they became the ruling class. When the English brought them meat, it was already cooks and looking tasty. So, we use the words derived from Old French such as pork, poultry, beef to describe the food, while we still use a variation of the Old English for the animal: pig, chicken, cow.

Unfortunately, due to simple marketing, propaganda and economics, I doubt whether words such as "dead cow" or "slaughter" will ever be used to counter "beef" and "culling". There have been some improvements. In Australia, it's now law that eggs have to be labeled "battery" if they come from battery hens. I always buy free range now.

Hope that this answered your question!

Answer 3

As I understand it, you are a vegetarian, and intend to gross out meat-eaters to the point where they may stop eating meat. Instead, my instinct is to say why must you force your ideas on others? What is it about vegetarians that they cannot accept the fact that we don't all want to risk protein deprivation just to give in to squeamishness, particularly when the actual slaughter and cleaning of the animals is done by professionals under clean conditions, and we are not personally involved.

I have heard hunters -- who must be at the opposite extreme of your feelings in the matter -- say that anyone who is unwilling or unable to kill their own food and clean a carcass does not deserve to eat. In both cases, you and they are denying the obvious fact that modern life involves specialization. Should we not have doctors because I can't imagine passing a course in gross anatomy and having to dissect a human cadaver? Isn't it useful that some people have strong stomachs and can do the necessary, and are paid for it by those of us who can't? Ever hear of "Crime Scene Cleaners, Inc.?" I pray you never need their services, but they are worth every penny of their fees.

And why not have polite words for things? We certainly need polite words for the sexual matters in our lives, or many of us could not talk about them at all. And we clearly need polite terms for the things police and plumbers have to deal with, don't we? It isn't a question of what they "really" are; they really are the polite words as well as the rude ones.

Answer 4

That beef comes from cows is known to most, but the close relationship between the words beef and cow is hardly household knowledge. Cow comes via Middle English from Old English c, which is descended from the Indo-European root *gwou-, also meaning "cow." This root has descendants in most of the branches of the Indo-European language family. Among those descendants is the Latin word bs, "cow," whose stem form, bov-, eventually became the Old French word buef, also meaning "cow." The French nobles who ruled England after the Norman Conquest of course used French words to refer to the meats they were served, so the animal called c by the Anglo-Saxon peasants was called buef by the French nobles when it was brought to them cooked at dinner. Thus arose the distinction between the words for animals and their meat that is also found in the English word-pairs swine/pork, sheep/mutton, and deer/venison. What is interesting about cow/beef is that we are in fact dealing with one and the same word, etymologically speaking.

Answer 5

Beef sounds better. It conjures up a better/more stomach-appealing image rather than "dead cow" or "slaughtered chicken". Actually sometimes I refer to beef as dead cow, especially when driving past In-N-Out and it smells like nasty hamburger.

Also, I think beef/poultry refer more so to the actual meat cuts rather than the entire cow or chicken.

Answer 6

I went to the County Fairgrounds this weekend, and they have buildings where the County residents show their Prized livestock.

It seemed odd that the Pigs building was labeled "Swine", and the Poultry building was labeled "Poultry", but the Cow building was labeled "BEEF". Why not "Bovine"?

We should call things what they are - Beef should be "Cow", Pork should be "Pig", and Mutton should be "Lamb".

But, more importantly, Veal should be "Tortured Baby Cow", and Shrimp should be "Cockaroach of the Sea", Squab should be "Dead baby pidgeon", and Eggs should be "dead baby chicken embryos."

I think the restaurant industry would complain.

Answer 7

beef means heavy well-fleshed body.that is to say the flesh of an adult domestic bovine (as a steer or cow) when killed for food also the bull in the full grown state fattened for food or a dressed carcass of a beef animal or it is also called as muscular flesh=brawn..
that is the beauty of English to specify with each and everything separately by its code name.
that is to differentiate the verity only. these are all specified and declared by the learn ed people and accepted widely by the universe.hence the terms cannot be changed by overnight.

Answer 8

Because if I ordered "Dead cow" at a restaurant, it would be a very complicated process. There are lots of different kinds of dead cow one can eat, and I could potentially confuse my waiter. I prefer to be more specific, using words such as "hamburger", "steak", and "beef". I'm just trying to help out the waitstaff.

Answer 9

I don't know. Reminds me of when I was living in Sudan and was talking about the practice of "killing" a sheep for Eid and other major holidays or festive occasions. The family buys a sheep, and either a family member or a butcher comes to "kill" the sheep. My Muslim friends would get all mad at me and say, they don't "kill" it, they "slaughter" it. Kill sounds nicer to me, but they said slaughter implies that it was done properly...ie, the animal's throat was slit to allow the heart to pump the blood out of the body..."kill" apparently means it died any-old-way.

No matter what you call the process, it still won't keep me from eating meat...

Answer 10

Most likely its because of the connotations of the words, for example dead cow does not sound appetizing and has a negative connotation, and just like everything is geared toward marketing, so is food, so the food industry would like to have all their words have positive connotations.
We still call chicken chicken and fish fish.

Answer 11

Its more appetizing to here that you are eating beef than a slaughtered cow...

Think about this

"I want a quaterpounder slaughtered cow with cheese please..."

That sounds more gruesome, right?