Yes, it's true that English uses different words for animals and their meat, say, pig, sheep/goat and cow/ox for the animals, but pork, mutton and beef for the meat.
The reason is that English language does have some connection with French since 100 known as the year of Norman Conquest. Frenchmen occupies the top posiiton of the court, and French language becomes the dominant one in palace.
Pork, mutton and beef are from French words of porc, mouton and boeuf. They are used to differ from the use by farmers, whom those French upper class think humble and inferior.

There are many other interesting cases of English language in adopting words from the other languages. I'm sure you guys can find more and share with us.

Maybe we have to date back to the history of England.Long long ago ,when French troops seized England French soon became the language of the upper-class. As a result,many English words stemmed from French.For instance,"pig" is referred to a sort of animal,but we use pork to describe its meat. Many French words have been used in English now

i always feel embarrassment about my vocabulary.so i really don't know much about the difference between animals and their meat.and say nothing of other languages..shame..

It's heard that in a long period of time the British were pround to say French,which reason might be that the French not only changed the government but they also changed the language.

sorry i can not say anything about it, so i just keep silent and then steal some interesting stories from you guys.

the life is the animal,the die is the meat.

There's many latin in English, esp. in American English. It seems journalist and politicians are more likely to use such words in their writings or speeches.

just name two:
de facto occupation
pro bono policy

Actually,before I have seen this artical,I didn't know little about the interesting story about the english . In the other words,I know ,but didn't care about.so I feel so ashamed that I have learning english so many years ,however I didn't know about the history of english.maybe, so many years,I always in a wrong direction.so I decide to collet the information about the english story.at last ,I would to say thanks.

The menus are ofen written in French,in fact even the word menu is french. Though American restraunts mercifully stick to English, even the best chefs can't resist a little je ne sais quoi, plopping in foreign words (80 percent of them French)like "spring mushroom cievt".These are words for adventure seekers, and they are meant to act as tripwires for a conversation with the waiter and, in turn , a chance to sell.

Apparently, from the relative material we learn the facts that some french language converted to english because of political reason. Even though Norman French has added a lot new words into english they themsleves has also been influenced by the english language too. the evidence is they gradually speaking english instead of french.
Besides, as the French has successfully conquer the norman they took advantage of their priority to call the "meat of pig" pork is to show their power and influence in other culture.
plus. there are also many other french copy、colognespirit、cent、modern、disco、model、mushroom etc. English is derived from Latin at first and fated to be gradually influenced by French as the hundred years war of England and France

I'm sorry I have just know the interesting things you said .I'M so ignorant.

Hello ,everybody, I am glad to join the group with you all,I worked in the foreign invest department for a lot of years,so my mainly work is to communicate and cooperate with the foreigners from all over the world to pursuade them to invest in China,ten years ago, they esbtalish the enterprises and factories to manufacture products been exported mostly,but now,situation changed due to the fast development in eastern China ,especially in Yangtze River delta, they came to china just to occupy our potential tempting market,sometimes , i became confused ....why we need to speak english to communicate with them, ... i had a dream that is someday in future ,chinese will become an international language instead of English! I am looking forward to the day! But now i need to speak english well enough!

I discover this forum today accidentally, one thing i can confrim you (vitamin-c) are indeed a "power" man can translate the VOA(contains a series of district name of other countries),also, ur blog is a delicious food supplied to a lot of english lovers and fans!i think it's much useful to them(contains me).
I agree with you the opinion proposed abvoe,indeed english contains a lot of stories full of background ,i konw little about this ,maybe next time ,if availble ,we can talk about the topic that is " the pronunciation of English in different contries "!

@howard

U flatter me!
BTW, "different english accent" could be a good topic for next "Walks and Talks" :)