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Originally Posted by KyleGoetz
"Beef" and "pork" are tough, aren't they!
The interesting thing about "beef" and "pork" is that the animal name is from Old English (cu->cow, pacg->pig), but the meat word is from French/Latin (boeuf->beef, porcus->pork). The theory is that poor, English-speaking people tended the animals (and so used Old English words), but the wealthy people who ate the meat, and the cooks who worked for the wealthy people in the kitchen, had to use the French word (boeuf, porcus).
An important thing to note, for people who don't know the history of England, is that in 1006 A.D., it was taken over by the French, and French remained the "court" language until the middle of the millennium.
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有難うございます~大学時代に戻ったみたい！え、難し� �んですか。。。
あ、確か・・・ノルマンコンクエストとかいうころから の話でしたっけ。やっぱり少しは歴史を知らないとなぁ …って感じです。
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To this day, Latin/French-based words carry an air of sophistication in English that Germanic words do not. Consider please pardon my profanity, but I think this is a very interesting demonstration
"feces" versus "shit"
"copulate" versus "fuck"
"illegitimate" versus "bastard"
"penis" versus "dick/cock/prick"
etc.
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うわっ一瞬びっくりしたっ
えっこれ、語源が関係するなんて！へ～すごいイイこと 聞いちゃった感。
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Also, non-profane words like
labor vs. work
feline vs. cat
canine vs. dog
sustenance/cuisine vs. food/meal
Couple final notes: Japanese holds Chinese in similar respect, linguistically, with 使う being a less sophisticated word compared to 使用する, 買う vs. 購入する, etc.
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あ、確かに…そういえば、二字熟語の方が堅めで、賢そ うですものね～友達へのメールは「使う」でも、丁寧な 文書だとやはり二字熟語の方を選びますね。
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Also, I tended to treat Latin and French equally in my post. This is because Latin was brought to England by the French (technically the Romans brought Latin to England, retreated and the language died out, then the French re-brought it, and it survived for a few hundred years as the upper-class language). Educated Japanese used Chinese hundreds of years ago while the lower classes used Japanese. Same deal.
You could say the 美化語 technique in English is to replace Germanic words with Latin/Frankish words.
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な～る・・・そうしますと、私なんか、丁寧かどうかな んて考えないで英語書いてたら、ごちゃ混ぜになって、 統一感がなくて不格好だったりしてるかも…？です。
何だか、丁寧さに関して「日英言語比較論」が出来そう です～