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)

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) 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. 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. Renerpho (talk) 02:20, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

References