A Chicken is a not a Chicken...

When cattle are alive, we call them cows or bulls, but when they are in the grocery stores, they are called beef.

When pigs are alive they are pigs, but in the stores they are called pork.

When chickens are alive they are chickens, but in the stores they are called...chickens.

Don't you just love the continuity of the English language?  Here's a story about this kind of confusion.

My wife and I hosted our friend "Kelly" from Japan this past week.  One of our excursions together last weekend was a trip to a children's farm at a park, where Kelly got to see all sorts of different animals.

When we got to the chicken coop, Kelly pointed to a plump black and white bird.  "What is that?"

"That's a chicken," we answered.

"Ehhhhhh??!!!" Kelly gasped, her eyes wide.  "NOT chicken!!!" she blurted.

At first, we couldn't understand it, but then my wife figured it out.  Kelly was astounded that we actually called live chickens "chickens," because in her native Japanese, the term "chikin" is used exclusively to refer to the meat product found in grocery stores, while the term niwatori referred to the living kind.

It became a running joke for the rest of her stay.  Kelly took it in stride, and whenever she saw chicken, whether live, raw, or cooked, she would close her eyes, shake her head, and start muttering, "Not chicken..."