I studied a couple of languages years and years ago and at the same time took a course on the history of languages. I remember one statement my professor made about English and the origin of some of the words. It had to do with the influence of the Normans after the Norman Conquest during the middle english stages. He used the two words, beef and cow as an example. Beef was eaten by the aristocracy (I think it comes from Anglo-norman) while the commoners who took care of the cattle used the term cow (Anglo-Saxon). Hence, it was understood for some period of time that if you were of the aristocracy you spoke words drived from the Romance languages and if you were a lowly commoner, you used words with Germanic roots. If you requested food while traveling and asked for beef you were treated much better than if you asked for cow. I cannot imagine anyone asking for 'cow' these days, so I guess at some point in time the commoners must have wanted to 'appear' a member of the aristocracy and started using only the word 'beef' and now only use 'cow' to refer to the animal itself. :o) I guess we are all really just commoners.