The Arbitrary ChuckJerry

Joe-

But then we'd have spaghetti and cowballs.
 

Joe--

There's a pretty simple explanation for the differences in meat/animal names...The Norman Invasion of 1066.

After the invasion, French was introduced to the English language though it was spoken mainly by nobility and educated folks. In other words, the peasants were saying "chicken" and the more educated people were using the French-derived "poultry." Same with “cow” and “beef.”

This is also why we have choppy phrasal verbs in English and more sophisticated counterparts. The choppy ones come from German, the more sophisticated ones from French.
eg:
"to get" vs. "receive"
"to put out" vs. "extinguish"

Also, language is less arbitrary than you think. There ARE indeed organizations that consciously plan which words to use and which to scrap (whether or not they are successful is another story). Look at the Academie Frances in France.
 

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