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- Topic: Swedish >
- "Nötköttet"
64 Comments
Actually, I think the sound is not correct on this one. In this forum section, I hear a (perhaps older) woman pronouncing the word fine. But when doing the exercise it sounden like a (perhaps younger) woman not pronouncing the T in the end. Which you could omit, but also could be pronounced. Reported it because I thought it sounded weird.
The newest voice often cuts off too early, and I agree this seems to be happening here. It's going to be removed soon, though.
The older voice has slightly weird stress but otherwises pronounces correctly, as you say.
Confusingly, mianai and Zmrzlina wrote their comments back when there was a different voice from both of those above. :)
As for bad audio, we can do nothing about that, so while I really appreciate the error reports on audio quality, they're mostly just pointless in practice, I'm afraid. :(
742
I've only ever heard it in the context of "neatsfoot oil", which is made from the shin bones and feet, but not the hooves, of cattle. My dad swears by it for conditioning leather baseball gloves. :)
17
Why do we call things like chicken and fish by their animal names, but can't do it for mammals (cow=beef, pig=pork, calf=veal, deer=venison, etc.)? Are we too squeamish to admit what we're eating?
As far as modern English goes, it has to do with the different languages that the poor and rich spoke in feudal England. The lower class (Saxons) referred to them as animals, as they were the ones raising the livestock. The upper class Norman rulers used the French terms to refer to them ... although by that point the animal was a food product. And, since the Saxons couldn't really afford to eat cow/pig/lamb/etc., they didn't generally refer to them as food with the English terms.
Interestingly, chicken (and fish I presume) were cheap enough to be eaten by all classes, so the English term was used in both cases.
At least that's what the common thinking is.
It sure is convenient for modern English speakers to be able to disassociate themselves from where their food came from, though.
That depends on the word's gender. My info post for beginners has an explanation on them here: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/26420394/Answers-to-some-common-questions-on-grammar-that-beginners-have
To all users and developers - I'm super disgusted by this required focus on eating dead animals. Pork. Beef. That's pig flesh and cow flesh. That will be my first answer in protest, on behalf of all dead animals on all plates all over by whatever name. :-( Veganly yours. Live simply, so others can Simply Live.
Hello. I'm a member of an animal rights club in the USA (not PETA; it's a small, local organization). The way I see it is this: If I didn't know the word for "veal" in English, I couldn't tell someone, "I don't eat veal." Or if they offered me some other dish, and I didn't know what "venison" meant, for example, I wouldn't know whether I could eat it or not. (Yes, I could ask someone, but the point of studying a language is to learn its vocabulary!) I would really have a hard time navigating restaurants in America looking for what I could eat, if I didn't know the names of the things I want to avoid.
It's the same way for other places and languages. If someone offers you nötköttet, it's better to know what it means and say "no", and perhaps even talk about why you don't eat it, than not to understand what it means and have to waste time figuring out that the speaker is talking about the flesh of cattle.
As far as the discussion of the origins of the English words veal, venison, etc., I must say that as an amateur historian and etymologist, I do find the origins of words interesting, even if they are about subjects which I find distasteful. It doesn't hurt your ability to be an advocate for animals' rights (or human rights) to know the history behind words because they also tell the history of how animals and people are (ab)used.
Just my 2 cents.
Common concepts with which you do not agree nevertheless play an important role in learning a language. If you do not eat animal products, you are going to find it difficult to order the food you do eat. Besides, the course features plenty of words for vegetables, fruit, terms like vegetarian, etc. I'm vegan, too, and I have zero issue with this.