Is there a word for that?

[Annie Subjunctive]

I said that?

Oh, I guess it wasn't you, it was the blog you linked to.

[pooka]

I originally posted it with "sound like a moron" but changed it to city dweller.  City dwellers don't know one type of cow from another, is my contention.

[Annie Subjunctive]

Unless they are awesome city dwellers like me with a secret sordid past in the FFA.

[The Genuine]

Incidentally, to this day lawyers the term "chattel" all the time.  For instance, "trespass to chattel" is often used to distinguish from the more common "trespass [to land]."

[pooka]

Why does beef mean the meat?  Is there a word for the meat of a goat? 

[Porter]

Goat meat is sometimes called chevon, but we just call it "goat" or "goat meat".

[Annie Subjunctive]

Why does beef mean the meat?  Is there a word for the meat of a goat? 

It's because the aristocracy in England was French-speaking for so long that we developed synonym pairs for meat and animal. The words for the animals (cow, pig, sheep) came from the words the Anglo-Saxon speaking peasants, who raised the live animals, would use. Whereas, the words for the meat (beef, pork, mutton) came from the French that the nobles, who typically only dealt with animals on their plates, spoke. (Chevon is similar)

Isn't that cool?

Also, I've heard goat meat called cabrito by my Texas goat-eating kin, but that's because of the Mexican influence. Kind of like how rabbit you eat is called hasenfeffer because it's most folks of the German persuasion who eat it.

[The Genuine]

So how do you explain the occasional difference in other languages between the animal name and the meat name?  I only know Spanish, but I suspect the distinction exists in other languages too.

Chicken:  gallina/pollo
Deer:  ciervo/venado

But, compare:

Cow:  vaca/carne (de vacuno)
Pig:  cerdo/carne (de cerdo)
Lamb:  oveja or cordero/ carne (de cordero)
Fish:  pez/pescado

[Porter]

I've eaten rabbit many times, but I've only heard it called hasenfeffer in Bugs Bunny cartoons (or references to it).

[Annie Subjunctive]

Maybe that's just me with a German mom.

[Annie Subjunctive]

So how do you explain the occasional difference in other languages between the animal name and the meat name?  I only know Spanish, but I suspect the distinction exists in other languages too.

Chicken:  gallina/pollo
Deer:  ciervo/venado

But, compare:

Cow:  vaca/carne (de vacuno)
Pig:  cerdo/carne (de cerdo)
Lamb:  oveja or cordero/ carne (de cordero)
Fish:  pez/pescado

Pollo just means chicken the animal. Gallina means hen. I don't know about deer myself, but it looks like those are words for two different animals. Most languages are pretty uniform with the "animal/meat of animal" formula.

[The Genuine]

Hmm.  I will have to consult with my Peruvian authority on this one.

[Annie Subjunctive]

I think what is most likely is a case of different Spanishes. Like how in Mexico mantequilla is butter but manteca is lard but in Argentina manteca is butter and mantequilla is lard.

[pooka]

I'd heard the meat/animal thing before.  I just never heard the word chevon until I read that article last week.

[Jonathon]

It's because the aristocracy in England was French-speaking for so long that we developed synonym pairs for meat and animal. The words for the animals (cow, pig, sheep) came from the words the Anglo-Saxon speaking peasants, who raised the live animals, would use. Whereas, the words for the meat (beef, pork, mutton) came from the French that the nobles, who typically only dealt with animals on their plates, spoke. (Chevon is similar)

Isn't that cool?

I read once that this is an oversimplification and that the words didn't really settle down into their current distributions until a few centuries after the Norman conquest. Unfortunately, I don't remember where I read that, and all I can find on the subject is people repeating this same basic idea without citing anything. I'm not sure where to begin actually researching it.

[Annie Subjunctive]

I saw it on The Story of English.

[pooka]

Is there a chance it was a class distinction thing, hence no special word for chicken meat?  Sometimes I wonder if it was a result of a parlor game, like the weird mass nouns for animals.

[Annie Subjunctive]

I think the whole argument is that it was a class distinction thing.

[Nighthawk]

Fish:  pez/pescado

My father has told me several times in the past that "pez" is a LIVING fish, whereas "pescado" is a dead one. I don't know if he said that only to make it easier for me to remember.

[Tante Shvester]

I just heard that the singular of "paparazzi" is "paparazzo".  But if there's just one of them, isn't that just a guy with a camera?

[rivka]

Sure, if he's obnoxious enough.

[Porter]

I am looking for a word for a situation that, has multiple valid, incompatible interpretations.

For example, there's the classic wire-frame cube.  Are we looking at the top and right sides of the cube, or the bottom and left sides?   Both are equally valid answers.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Or let's take the late 80's song More than Words by Exteme.  Is this a sweet song about how actions speak louder than words, or is it an icky song about "If you loved me, you'd do it with me"?  (While I agree that there's more evidence for the second interpretation, that doesn't make the first interpretation not work.)

Or the fan theory of the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which states that the character Ferris Bueller was all in Cameron's head.

So, do any of you know of a word that fits these sorts of situations?

[Tante Shvester]

Ambiguous?

[Porter]

I'm trying to articulate why I didn't just go with that word in the first place.  It may be that my use of ambiguous is somewhat idiomatic, but here's why I don't like it for what I'm looking for.

Let's take this other situation where person A says that they have clearly, no doubt about it, felt God's touch in their life.  Person B says that it's just their imagination.

Now, if this situation were part of a story, depending on how it's written, we could easily say that it's ambiguous whether or not it really happened.

But if this were real life, I don't like the word ambiguous.  I might say that we can't know for sure what really happened, but I wouldn't say that it's ambiguous. 

Maybe it's because, at least in my mind, ambiguity is part of communication.  Stories, songs, and diagrams can be ambiguous (as all of my examples were), but real life can't.  Real life is uncertain or unknown, but not ambiguous.

Also, this word that I'm flailing around for is a noun for such "ambiguous" situations.

[rivka]

Hi, Porter!

Unverified? Subjective? (Not nouns, but I am unconvinced there is an English noun that meets your criteria.)