Talk:Beef

Recent edits involving original research

Recent edits by Superdoggo were adding WP:OR, entirely unsourced content and removing reliable sources from the article, the user did the same at carnivore diet. Please add reliable sources if you want to add content, also on controversial articles like this you shouldn't just start removing massive pieces of well sourced text without a valid reason. Please use an edit summary for large edits so we know what is going on and your reasoning. Psychologist Guy (talk) 13:46, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Etymology

Quote from the article:

After the Norman Conquest, the French-speaking nobles who ruled England naturally used French words to refer to the meats they were served. Thus, various Anglo-Saxon words were used for the animal (such as nēat, or cu for adult females) by the peasants, but the meat was called boef (ox) (Modern French bœuf) by the French nobles — who did not often deal with the live animal — when it was served to them.

This repeats a common myth, that the words for animal meat (like beef) and the words for the animals themselves (like cow) have their origin in social divisions after the Norman conquest. This has been shown numerous times to be an 18th century fabrication, though it is an extremely prevalent idea online. I have tagged that section of the article as dubious, and would suggest to replace it with a note about the actual etymology and the myth, and then add a source (I suggest two here, see references linked below), which this entire sentence is currently lacking.

There is one more minor issue, which is that our link boef leads to a Wiktionary page that has no apparent connection to the topic.

I wouldn't be surprised if this made it into more articles on Wikipedia, like those about other types of meat, about the animals, or the history of the English language in general. It may be worth checking those, but maybe let's start with just this one. I have notified WikiProkect Food and drink. Renerpho (talk) 01:24, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

@Renerpho, thanks for this, and for the note at WT:FOOD. Whenever you see material that is definitely incorrect and also aWP:Glossary#uncited information, please remove it right away. It's sometimes helpful to link to WP:CHALLENGE in the edit summary. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:33, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: I was thinking about removing it, but given how widespread the false etymology is, I'm afraid I'd get reverted. There are a lot of sources we'd consider reliable who corroborate the myth (the short video linked below does give some examples), so I'd prefer to discuss it first. Renerpho (talk) 01:39, 16 October 2024 (UTC) As anecdotal evidence for the prevalence of this idea, I was taught this as "fact" in school in the early 2000s, and I know they still teach it in school at least in France and Germany (don't know about other countries). Renerpho (talk) 01:53, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: I added some more examples below where this appears on Wikipedia (as a collapsed list, because the list gets long quickly). Many of these examples do come with what looks like reliable sources; it's just that those sources are mostly outdated (2010s or older). As far as I can tell, the first scholar who raised serious doubts about the popular etymology was Robert Burchfield, in his 1985 The English Language, and it took some more time for this to be generally accepted, until the mid-2010s or so. Renerpho (talk) 02:52, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Because of the absolutist nature of our WP:CHALLENGE rules, any time this material is completely uncited in the article, you can remove it with impunity.

The ones that are wrong+cited can be removed, but in that case an explanation needs to be given. Usually, it's enough to say something like "This is wrong; see https://www.example.com/ScholarlySource". This will be particularly effective for quite old sources. Nobody wants the articles to be wrong or showing outdated information, so this is usually accepted without any complaint at all. If someone reverts you, then of course you can explain everything on the talk page.

If you're hoping to contradict the incorrect rumor, then you might even want to talk to Rollinginhisgrave about whether this could qualify (once corrected) for the List of common misconceptions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:27, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, WhatamIdoing! I think inclusion in that list would be justified. I'd like to involve someone with a professional (or at least a semi-professional) background in linguistics, so I'll notify the corresponding WikiProjects. Renerpho (talk) 03:38, 16 October 2024 (UTC) I have notified WP:Linguistics and WP:History. Renerpho (talk) 03:44, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

To facilitate the discussion, here are the two central quotes from the relevant books/papers. From (Burchfield, 1985):

One enduring myth about French loanwords of the medieval period must be discounted. It is sometimes said that the Normans brought many culinary and gastronomic terms with them and, in particular, that they brought the terms for the flesh of animal eaten as food. This is no more than a half-truth. The culinary revolution, and the importation of French vocabulary into English society, scarcely preceded the eighteenth century, and consolidated itself in the nineteenth. The words veal, beef, venison, pork and mutton, all of French origin, entered the English language in the early Middle Ages, and they would all have been known to Chaucer. But they meant not only the flesh of a calf, of an ox, of a deer, etc. but also the animals themselves.

And, based on research into the development of Middle English that was not available in Burchfield's time, from the conclusions in chapter 12 of (Őrsi, 2015):

1. The sharp sociocultural opposition as presented by Scott probably did not exist in this form at the end of the 12th century. It developed over a long period of time, in the 14th and 15th centuries. All the four words survived to denote animals in some restricted use: archaic, dialectal or technical.
[...]
3. The sense ‘living animal’ all but fell into disuse at the end of the 19th century.
[...]
8. The French element of the specific vocabulary examined mainly refers to the preparation and consumption of food. In this respect, Scott’s remark retains its validity.

Renerpho (talk) 04:27, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

• In such a case, WP:due weight applies. A single paper from 2015 which as of now has only 2(!) citations that builts a case on an observation in a book from 1985 does not necessarily mean that the case is settled, as is insinuated here by the OP ("This has been shown numerous times to be an 18th century fabrication"). Crystal (1997), Gramley & Pätzold (2003) and Algeo (2010) do not become invalid just because of a paper that remains virtually unnoticed by the scholarly community. It's not that I say Őrsi that is wrong; but WP certainly gives preference to much-cited high-quality sources over novel and still obscure research. Eger Journal of English Studies is certainly a respectable journal, but this one publication does not flip academic consensus as represented in publications by Routledge and Cambridge University Press. –Austronesier (talk) 08:40, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

  @Austronesier: A good point, and I'd even say one of those two, Bogni (2019), is quite "obscure". On the other hand, Hejná et al. (2022) give it quite some weight, and that (a recently published textbook) is a more interesting citation. Would you agree with that assessment?

  By the way, do you have access to Őrsi's reference Cormican (1990)? I haven't had a chance to look at it, because it doesn't seem to be easily available. Renerpho (talk) 09:56, 16 October 2024 (UTC) Renerpho (talk) 09:56, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

  The second source that cites Őrsi is indeed a good one (Language Science Press publishes material that is generally reliable and of high-quality). The popular interpretation of the lievstock/meat-pairs is obviously simplistic and rooted in 19th century ethnonationalist ideology (it was also Scott who turned Robin Hood into a "Saxon" rebel against the "Norman" elite), but it takes a more thorough corpus-based study than presented by Őrsi to get a full picture of the usage of the Anglo-Saxon vs. Norman French-derived terms. Crystals (1997) and Hejná & Walkden (2022) taken together can serve to provide a balanced statement about the cow/beef-pair.

  I have no access to Cormican (1990). It took me some time to figure out that "Language Quarterly" refers to the University of South Florida Language Quarterly which does not even have an online index of articles (but its volume 28 was published in 1990, so it must be the one). I suggest to try your luck at WP:RX. –Austronesier (talk) 15:24, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

  Listed at Resource Request#Cormican (1990) -- thanks! Renerpho (talk) 22:10, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

  We might need to be clear about the existence of a disagreement. A "he said/she said" approach can work well.

  I would like to see the bit about the lords rarely dealing with the live animals removed. I doubt that this is really true, especially for deer/venison (which was normally hunted on horseback and therefore not by peasants; see Medieval hunting). There was significant socioeconomic inequality, but nobody had a modern urban lifestyle free of contact with farm animals. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:16, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

  @WhatamIdoing: It may have to be phrased more precisely if we add it back to the article, but there's probably some truth to it. Even Őrsi agrees, quote:

  According to Cornican, “the more abstract word poultry comes from Middle French pouleterie [‘domestic fowl’ (a1387)], and suggests that the person using it does not deal with real, live birds.”

  And further down:

  Cormican’s examples (1990:86) show that Anglo-Saxon words were used for the birth of the various species that were domesticated and thus raised by English peasants. Raising animals must have been considered a menial occupation obviously restricted to Saxons.

  Őrsi concludes that

  6. The observation that some of the terms of French origin are more abstract than the corresponding Germanic words: poultry, cattle is still valid.

  Renerpho (talk) 07:15, 18 October 2024 (UTC) Renerpho (talk) 07:15, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not comfortable relying on a linguist for historical labor divisions. Consider "Raising animals must have been considered a menial occupation obviously restricted to Saxons": Most lords were involved in agriculture at some level until the late Medieval period. That level might have involved more oversight and less scooping manure out of stables, but it was pretty hands-on compared to what most of us see now. Even a king would be expected to know something about raising livestock.

  Goatherds and shepherds have been considered menial occupations throughout history. But it's wrong to say this is because they were Saxons; before the Norman Conquest, the goatherds were Anglo-Saxon because that's who lived in England. Their equally Anglo-Saxon lords didn't spend as much time in direct contact as a lifelong herder, but they weren't completely insulated from it. Also, while being a shepherd was menial, being the head of the horses for a wealthy lord was a different thing. Poultry was women's work, and most Medieval households kept chickens. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:52, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

  @WhatamIdoing: I agree with you, and the sources we have here obviously lack in diversity (and may, as you note, lack in relevant expertise). Do you have a good source for labour divisions in medieval England? Renerpho (talk) 05:59, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

  doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2020.03.027 is about late Medieval poultry practices. doi:10.3390/ani11041174 describes cattle over the centuries, and might be useful here because it mentions a shift from a variety of uses (e.g., cows for milk, oxen for pulling plows and wagons) towards meat production. This paper via WP:TWL (you'll have to log in there first) covers the early Medieval period in England. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:30, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

  But overall, I wonder: Maybe we just shouldn't bother saying anything about this detail. We can give the etymology without passing comment on who spent the most time in the cowshed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:31, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Other instances on Wikipedia (or elsewhere)

Click "show" to see the full list

Middle English says: A significant number of words of Norman origin began to appear in the English language alongside native English words of similar meaning, giving rise to such Modern English synonyms as pig/pork, chicken/poultry, calf/veal, cow/beef, sheep/mutton, wood/forest, house/mansion, worthy/valuable, bold/courageous, freedom/liberty, sight/vision, and eat/dine. The source in this instance is a journal article from 1901. While the statement in that Wikipedia article is technically not wrong (those terms did enter English after the Norman conquest, and existed alongside their Anglo-Saxon counterparts of similar meaning), there is nothing in that article to explain what that "similar meaning" is. In particular, the source corroborates the myth. Renerpho (talk) 02:07, 16 October 2024 (UTC) Owen Barfield's popular History in English Words from 1926 says so as well: For the Saxon neatherd who had spent a hard day tending his oxen, sheep, calves, and swine, probably saw little enough of the beef, mutton, veal, pork, and bacon, which were gobbled at night by his Norman masters. If the myth hadn't taken off by this point, I suspect Barfield's book would have caused it to. Renerpho (talk) 02:07, 16 October 2024 (UTC) Meat says in the very first paragraph after the lead section: English has specialized terms for the meat of particular animals, deriving from the Norman conquest of England in 1066: while the animals retained their English names, their meat as brought to the tables of the invaders was named in Norman French. These names came to be used by the entire population. This is followed by a table of the different terms for the meat vs. the animals. Renerpho (talk) 02:15, 16 October 2024 (UTC) This, together with the table that follows, has been removed from the article. Renerpho (talk) 04:13, 16 October 2024 (UTC) From Anglo-Norman language: The major Norman-French influence on English can still be seen in today's vocabulary. An enormous number of Norman-French and other medieval French loanwords came into the language, and about three-quarters of them are still used today. Very often, the Norman or French word supplanted the original English term, or both words would co-exist but with slightly different nuances: for example, cow (describing the animal) and beef (describing the meat). In other cases, the Norman or French word was adopted to signify a new reality, such as judge, castle, warranty. This has been partially removed from the article. Renerpho (talk) 04:09, 16 October 2024 (UTC) The main article linked from there is Influence of French on English, which says so, too: In many cases, a French word might have existed alongside a Germanic word that meant the same thing, with the two words eventually taking on different senses. Exemplifying this are the "food pairs" in which the English word refers to a living animal on a farm, while the French word signifies the meat of the animal after it has been made into a meal (cow and beef, swine and pork, sheep and mutton). The source in this case is David Crystals 1997 Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English language, a book that is generally regarded as a high-quality source. It was published before the 18th century origin of the false etymology were unearthed in the 2010s. Renerpho (talk) 02:20, 16 October 2024 (UTC) This has been removed from the article. Renerpho (talk) 04:09, 16 October 2024 (UTC) From Foreign-language influences in English: Their language also contributed common words, such as the names of meats: veal, mutton, beef, pork, and how food was prepared: boil, broil, fry, roast, and stew; as well as words related to the nobility: prince, duke, marquess, viscount, baron, and their feminine equivalents. The source, John Algeo's 2010 Origins and Development of the English Language, agrees, saying (p.255): French names were given not only to various animals when served up as food at Norman tables—beef, mutton, pork, and veal, for instance Again, I think Algeo could not have known better in 2010. Renerpho (talk) 02:32, 16 October 2024 (UTC) This has been partially removed from the article. Renerpho (talk) 04:34, 16 October 2024 (UTC) Quote from List of English words of French origin: The majority of the population of England continued to use their Anglo-Saxon language, but it was influenced by the language of the ruling elite, resulting in pairs of words. Consider for example the words for the meats eaten by the Anglo-Norman nobility and the corresponding animals raised by the Anglo-Saxon peasants: beef/ox, mutton/sheep, veal/calf, pork/pig, or pairs of words pertaining to different registers of language: commence/start, commerce/trade, continue/go on, depart/leave, disengage/withdraw, encounter/meet, maintain/uphold, marry/wed, menace/threat, purchase/buy, revenue/income, vend/sell. No source is given for this. (that article is lacking references in general, and has been tagged accordingly since January 2023.) Renerpho (talk) 02:36, 16 October 2024 (UTC) This has been removed from the article. Renerpho (talk) 04:09, 16 October 2024 (UTC) The very first sentence of the lead section for List of English words with dual French and Old English variations reads: After the Norman invasion of England in 1066 many of the more refined English (Old English) words describing finished products were replaced with words borrowed from Anglo-Norman (such as "beef", a prepared food). In contrast, common unfinished equivalents continued to use the native English term (such as "cow", a living animal). This replacement can be explained by the fact that meat was an expensive product at the time and that the lord and nobleman of Norman origin were eating it more often than the commoners, who were raising the livestock. This duality is also mirrored in French, where "beef" is bœuf, but "cow" is vache. These dual words later formed the basis of the Middle English wordstock, and were eventually passed into the modern language. This is not true. As noted, words such as "beef" meant both the animal and the food until French cuisine became fashionable in England in the 18th century, and it is Walter Scott's 1819 novel Ivanhoe (in a section that's based on a story Scott heard from a friend, likely originating in the late 18th century) that made that etymology popular. Renerpho (talk) 02:43, 16 October 2024 (UTC) This has been removed from the article. Renerpho (talk) 04:37, 16 October 2024 (UTC) From the lead section of British cuisine: Wine and words such as beef and mutton were brought to Britain by the Normans I am inclined to remove some of this, but it's technically not wrong, so I let it stand (for now). Although the source is recent (2020), the authors are archeologists, not linguists. There is no indication that the authors undertook independent research into the etymology of those words, and were rather simply unaware of research developments of the past few years. As such, it's possible that they had the false etymology in mind when they were writing this. Renerpho (talk) 04:47, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Origin

The idea basically originates from Sir Walter Scott's novel "Ivanhoe". See here... AnonMoos (talk) 23:14, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

@AnonMoos: Yes, that's correct. While that's a blog, not a peer-reviewed article, Language Log is written by scholars, and the author is one of the regular contributors. And yet, Steven Bird (a computational linguist and professor of computer science) makes the mistake of taking Scott's description as gospel, when it is in fact the very origin of the myth:

When I first encountered the French words for farm animals such as pig (fr porc, cf pork), ox (boeuf, cf beef), calf (fr veau, cf veal), it seemed as though the French couldn't look at an animal without salivating. However, the fact that English vocabulary distinguishes field-names from food-names for certain animals is, crudely stated, a consequence of the Norman conquest of 1066 and the following centuries in which the French-speaking aristocracy ruled over English-speaking peasants. Recently I discovered a delightful discussion of this point of vocabulary in Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (1820), a novel set in 12th century England. We pick up a conversation between Gurth, the slave-swineherd, and the jester Wamba, in a glade in the ancient forest near Sheffield, around sunset...

He wrote this in 2004, a decade before Őrsi, so I can hardly blame him. It's a nice example for how that myth got propagated, and why historical fiction (like Ivanhoe) should not be confused with history. To quote Hejná & Walkden (2022):

Scott’s view of the 12th century, and of Saxons and Normans as distinct races, is shaped more by 19th-century nationalism than by historical fact. In any case, nothing like the episode with Gurth, Wamba and the word-pairs could possibly have happened, because Middle English porc ‘pork’, beof ‘beef’ and motoun ‘mutton’ are recorded as borrowings for the first time around 1300. Even more importantly, during the Middle English period these words didn’t just refer to the meat, but could also refer to the animals themselves – as could the inherited words for pig, cow and sheep. It’s only much later, after 1500, that the sharp distinction between inherited animal-words and French meat-words was established (see Őrsi 2015). Still, the fact that this distinction was established at all is a testament to the enduring prestige of the French language in England, many centuries after the Norman Conquest.

Renerpho (talk) 06:27, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Scott popularized it, but the earliest expression of the idea is said to be John Wallis's Grammatica linguae Anglicanae (e.g. by Jespersen 1905:89). Nardog (talk) 13:18, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Interesting! I was not aware of Wallis's work. Here's the quote from Jespersen:

It is a remark that was first made by John Wallis¹ and that has been very often repeated, especially since Sir Walter Scott made it popular in 'Ivanhoe', that while the names of several animals in their lifetime are English (ox, cow, calf, sheep, swine, boar, deer) they appear on the table with French names (beef, veal, mutton, pork, bacon, brawn, venison). This is generally explained from the masters leaving the care of the living animals to the lower classes, while they did not leave much of the meat to be eaten by them. But it may with just as much right be contended that the use of the French words here is due to the superiority of the French cuisine, which is shown by a great many other words as well, such as sauce, boil, fry, roast, toast, pasty, pastry, soup, sausage, jelly, dainty; while the humbler breakfast is English, the more sumptuous meals, dinner and supper, as well as feasts generally, are French.

The passage in Wallis is in the preface, pages xx-xxi. It's in Latin, but s far as I can tell, Jespersen paraphrases it closely. The connection to French cuisine, rather than the Norman conquest, has been made again in Burchfield (1985).

The question of whether Scott was correct, and what he based his ideas on, isn't new. In 1853, an A. R. X. noted, in a reply to a question sent in by E. S. Taylor:

It would be interesting to know the source from whence Sir Walter Scott derived his ideas on this subject: whether from some previous writer, or "some odd corner of the brain."

The same page also gives the Latin text of Wallis's 1653 book, and some further remarks on Taylor's question. The question itself (about the origin of the meat/animal distinction) is given on page 13. It appears that some were aware by the 1850s that Scott's etymology doesn't quite match historical reality. Renerpho (talk) 21:47, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I completely missed that Jespersen (and Wallis) are quoted by Őrsi, who says:

We do not know whether Scott knew Wallis' work or he came to the same conclusion independently.

Here's my translation of Wallis (1653). I think it's very relevant, especially considering some attempts to date the shift to the 18th century:

Nor do I think it happened by mere chance that we call living animals by names of Germanic origin, yet refer to their meat prepared for food by names of French origin. For example: ox, cow, calf, sheep, pig, boar, deer, etc., but beef, veal, mutton, pork, brawn, venison, etc.
But I would suppose this arose from the fact that the Norman soldiers were less involved in pastures, barns, pigsties, and places where the care of living animals took place (which thus retained their old names) than in the butcher shops, kitchens, tables, and banquets, where food was either prepared or served, and thus gained new names from them.

I guess there's good reason why Hejná & Walkden (2022) only date it vaguely to "after 1500", but don't go further than that. Renerpho (talk) 22:17, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

References