> During this period, more than 10,000 loanwords from French entered the English language, mostly in domains where the aristocracy held sway: the arts, military, medicine, law and religion.
One interesting aspect where this is very visible in the english language is meat-related language.
Raw food and animals words, butchered by the common people have mostly germanic/saxon roots that have nothing in common with french words, e.g. lamb, chicken, pork, beef, etc.
But cooked/processed meat has mostly french-derived words: sausage, charcuterie, cutlet, fillet, grill, sirloin, roast, stew..
I think you mixed up the words a little, pork and beef are of French origin, compare with modern French porc and bลuf, the germanic words are pig and cow.
There are also some words derived from French but pronounced in a very non-French manner. The t in valet should be fully pronounced. Making the word sound French is a non-U hypercorrection.
> Making the word sound French is a non-U hypercorrection.
I disagree that pronouncing it "VALLay" is hypercorrection. Proper French pronunciation would be "vallAY" (with the emphasis on the second syllable).
At any rate, my language background is upper-middle-class English English, and nobody pronounced the word "valitt". That's an americanism, as far as I'm concerned. As a consequence, I've always struggled with the word when used to mean cleaning e.g. a car interior.
FWIW, I understand that the "U and non-U" thing was meant as a joke, was horribly snobbish, and was anchored in a particular stratum of early 20th-C English society.
One interesting aspect where this is very visible in the english language is meat-related language.
Raw food and animals words, butchered by the common people have mostly germanic/saxon roots that have nothing in common with french words, e.g. lamb, chicken, pork, beef, etc.
But cooked/processed meat has mostly french-derived words: sausage, charcuterie, cutlet, fillet, grill, sirloin, roast, stew..