Words for meat differ from the words for the corresponding animal

Solution 1:

I believe that many of these come from the use of French in England amongst the aristocracy after the Norman conquest. Thus 'pork' (porc) is the posh word, 'pig' is the vulgar peasant (or English) word. I don't have any reference for this, but I heard it somewhere in my travels. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it does sound like a convincing story.

Solution 2:

What are some others I didn't list?

• Venison for deer
• Squab for pigeon
• Chevon for goat
• Carabeef for buffalo
• Long pig for human

Solution 3:

A cow is made up of more than its meat so referring to the muscle with a different name to the entire animal isn't that hard to swallow. How the meat is prepared and even the age of the animal can give the meat a different name too. e.g. pork, bacon and ham or lamb and mutton.

Why some animals have this distinction and not others is something I'm unsure of. This is a bit of history surrounding the beef/cow words on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef#Etymology