Related (and interesting):

A peculiarity perhaps unique to a handful of languages, English included, is that the nouns for meats are commonly different from, and unrelated to, those for the animals from which they are produced, the animal commonly having a Germanic name and the meat having a French-derived one.

Examples include: deer and venison; cow and beef; swine/pig and pork; and sheep/lamb and mutton. This is assumed to be a result of the aftermath of the Norman conquest of England, where an Anglo-Norman-speaking elite were the consumers of the meat, produced by lower classes, which happened to be largely Anglo-Saxon[citation needed], though this same duality can also be seen in other languages like French, which did not undergo such linguistic upheaval (e.g. boeuf "beef" vs. vache "cow").

With the exception of beef and pork, the distinction today is gradually becoming less and less pronounced (venison is commonly referred to simply as deer meat, mutton is lamb, and chicken is both the animal and the meat over the more traditional term poultry. (Use of the term mutton, however, remains, especially when referring to the meat of an older sheep, distinct from lamb; and poultry remains when referring to the meat of birds and fowls in general. Use of the term swineflesh for pork, is also widespread, especially in religious contexts)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language

When the Normans came, they brought French. They enslaved the old German speakers of Britain, and the language of the people who bathed more often was, for centuries to come, Romance.

The overarching story is good but to respectfully nitpick, in terms of linguistics, Germanic and German don't mean the same thing. At least, only a little more than Java and JavaScript do.

The English were not speaking German prior to 1066 but Old English or Anglo Saxon, a mish-mash of ancient Britannic languages, Latin, Old Norse, and some West Germanic languages.

Also, it wasn't "French" that was brought over to England. At least, not in any codified, official sense of the term that we now accept. The Duchy of Normandy was still separate from the Kingdom of France (although Norman was one of the oïl languages) until the 13th century and Norman, as a language, had more Norse influence than other oïl languages due to prior invasions.

I enjoyed this article although I suspect its factual veracity (oops, err, truth).

For one thing LEOs don't say "individual" because they're romance language kowtowers but rather because it's an instance of the largest valid superclass of man/child/woman/girl/boy/teenager/infant/...

Similarly, it's not "Sir, please get out of the Porsche 911" but "Sir, please get out of the vehicle". "Vehicle" is factually correct whatever the beliefs of the other party ("this is not just a car!").

Perhaps I'm not smart enough to catch all of the nuances in the article. For example the very first sentence's "grandmother" is splendidly etymologically ambiguous (grossmutter/grandmere), is this intentional?

Similarly "smart" (allegedly dumb German word) is derived via German smerzan, Latin mordere, Greek smerdnos (according to my dictionary).

Ha ha. From the bottom of his post:

"Oh hi there, Hacker News. Someone apparently submitted this and it's doing pretty well. Some sort of HN or reddit flare-up happens with more of my posts than not, and it always has me wanting to find a way to capitalize on it and become some professional writer-philosopher. One with muscles and a serious artist face. Hey, a boy has got to dream. Anyways, I can write stuff. I'm a little bit smart. You should totally hire me or something. kenmyers@gmail.com. Or what if I wrote a book? Would that work? If I've got, like, 140 RSS subscribers, but 50,000 hits a month through sites like HN and reddit, do you think that's enough of a following to get me somewhere? Talk to me."

That's how you capitalize on success.

  > Policemen, charged with high office but often born of a commoner
  > strain, struggle with sloppy mismatches, calling a suspect
  > "the individual," in utter subconscious terror of being labeled
  > the sort of guy who uses the word "man."

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to utilize the commode.

This reminds me of Gerrard Winstanley, a Digger, who said, quite eloquently, speaking of the Norman yoke:

"Oh, thou City, thou hypocritical City ! Thou blindfold, drowsy England, that sleeps and snorts in the bed of covetousness, awake, awake ! The enemy is upon thy back, he is ready to scale the walls and enter possession, and wilt thou not look out?

By, then, of course, it was too late.

As an amusing side note, the word "hell" in German means "light" (as in the electromagnetic spectrum variety, as opposed to a lack of weight).

I'm wondering whether the usage of (allegedly less offensive) Latin terms makes any difference to people who actually know Latin well, like priests.

This is extremely similar in content to Elliot Engle's book /A Light History of the English Language/ and a lecture he gave semi-regularly at NC State when I was a student there.

http://www.amazon.com/Light-History-English-Language-Expande...?

What does he actually want to say?

i think the problem is not you using plain words, but for you mentioning the hell.

i think in ancient times, mentioning Hell, Helheim, trolls was also only for brave men, and Germanic grandmothers were against it

God says, "fallen delivered openly dangerous restraining disgraced shaggy ungodliness irritate inserted gotten pg Prophet liar Many institution Image cheerful bless boyish brackishness silently Unto piece BOOK tender friend REMEDIES inspecting "

Du Gotten Liebe?