{"id":2675,"date":"2010-04-12T16:46:37","date_gmt":"2010-04-12T16:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/blog\/?p=2675"},"modified":"2010-04-12T16:46:37","modified_gmt":"2010-04-12T16:46:37","slug":"boeuf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=2675","title":{"rendered":"B\u0153uf"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cows\"<\/p>\n

One thing we were discussing last week at the French conversation group was words for animals and their meat. In French the words for meat are also used for the animals: b\u0153uf<\/em> means beef and ox, porc<\/em> means pork and pig, mouton<\/em> means mutton and sheep, while in English there are different words for these things.<\/p>\n

The popular explanation for the different English words for the animals and their meat is that after the Norman invasion of Britain in 1066, the animals were reared by the English, who called them c\u00fd<\/em>, pecges<\/em> and sc\u00e9apes<\/em> (cows, pigs and sheep) and eaten by the Normans, who called them boef<\/em>, porc<\/em> and motun<\/em> (beef, pork and mutton). However the distinction between the names for the meat and the animals didn’t become set until the 18th century, and mutton and beef were used to refer to sheep and cows for many centuries after the Norman Conquest.<\/p>\n

B\u0153uf<\/em> comes from the Latin bos<\/em> (ox, cow), the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root of which is gw\u00f3u<\/em> (cow). This is also the root of vache<\/em>, the French word for cow, via the Latin vacca<\/em> (cow), and of the English word cow, via the Old English c\u00fa<\/em> (pl. c\u00fd<\/em>) and the reconstructed Proto-Germanic word kwom<\/em>. In fact many of the words for cow, bull or cattle in Indo-European languages probably come from the PIE root gw\u00f3u<\/em>. Examples include: b\u00f3<\/em> (Irish and Scottish Gaelic), booa<\/em> (Manx), buwch<\/em> (Welsh), bugh<\/em> (Cornish), buoc’h<\/em> (Breton), govs<\/em> (Latvian), \u056f\u0578\u057e (kov)<\/em> (Armenian), \u06af\u0627\u0648 (gav – Persian) and Kuh (German).<\/p>\n

As well as ox or steer and beef, b\u0153uf<\/em> also means (a) surprising; unusual; (b) stupid (in Swiss French); (c) (musical) jam session \/ jazz improvisation. <\/p>\n

Idioms containing b\u0153uf<\/em> include: <\/p>\n