![]() ![]() Generally, words coming from French often retain a higher register than words of Anglo-Saxon origin, and they are considered by some to be more posh, elaborate, sophisticated, or pretentious. In some cases, these dual variations are distant etymological twins, as in cow/beef, both from Proto-Indo-European * gʷōus, but in other cases, such as calf/veal, they come from distinct PIE roots. These dual words later formed the basis of the Middle English wordstock, and were eventually passed into the modern language. This duality is also mirrored in French, where "beef" is bœuf, but "cow" is vache. This replacement can be explained by the fact that meat was an expensive product at the time and that the lord and nobleman of Norman origin were eating it more often than the commoners, who were raising the livestock. In contrast, common unfinished equivalents continued to use the native English term (such as "cow," a living animal). After the Norman invasion of England in 1066 many of the more refined English ( Anglo-Saxon) words describing finished products were replaced with words, borrowed from Anglo-Norman (such as "beef," a prepared food). ![]() This list of English words with dual French and Anglo-Saxon variations lists various English words with redundant loanwords.
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