> 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).

Absolutely facinating. I've got to do some reading on this. Another interesting thing I've heard about is the difference between British and American spellings. Usually the difference between words like "centre" and "center" is attributed to the US changing the language to make it more simple. Which is logical, but I recently found out that it was England in the 1600's or 1700's that adopted the French spellings as part of a movement at the time.