Opinion Talking turkey

Thanksgiving is the all-American holiday. Turkey is the all-American bird. It was here long before Columbus or the Pilgrims. Early explorers reported vast flocks of turkeys nesting in the magnolia forest. Turkeys are a lot more American than apple pie. But they’re named after a country 4,429 miles away. It’s not a coincidence. It’s not that the two words just sound alike. Turkeys are named after Turkey. But there is a connection.

Once upon a time,English mealtimes were miserable things. There were no potatoes,no cigars and definitely no turkey. Then people began to import a strange,exotic bird. Its scientific name was Numida meleagris; its normal name now is the helmeted guinea fowl,because it’s got this weird bony protuberance on its forehead that looks a bit like a helmet. It came all the way from Madagascar,off the southeast coast of Africa,but the English didn’t know that. All the English knew was that it was delicious,and that it was imported to Europe by merchants from Turkey. They were the Turkey merchants,and so,soon enough,the bird just got called the turkey.

But that’s not the turkey you’ll be serving with cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. As I said,that’s an American bird. When the Spanish arrived in the New World they found a bird whose scientific name is Meleagris gallopavo. But the Spaniards didn’t care about science. All they cared about was that this bird was really,really delicious. It tasted just like turkey,only better.

They started exporting the birds to Europe,and soon enough they arrived on English dinner tables at just about the same time that the English were setting up their first colonies in America. The Pilgrims didn’t care about any subtle distinctions. They just tasted this great bird and thought,turkey. That’s the way the English language goes.

Other languages don’t make the same mistake. They make different ones. In France it’s called dinde,because they thought it was from India,or,in French,d’Inde. And in Turkey a lot of people thought that,too,so it’s called Hindi.

There was a 19th-century American joke about two hunters — an American and a Native American — who go hunting all day but only get an owl and a turkey. So the American turns to his companion and says: “Let’s divide up. You get the owl and I get the turkey.” The Native American says: “No. Let’s do it the other way round.” So the American says,“OK,I’ll get the turkey and you get the owl.” And the Native American replies,“You don’t talk turkey at all.” That’s where the phrase let’s talk turkey comes from. Let’s do real business.

Forsyth is the author of ‘The Horologicon: A Day’s Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language’ The New York Times.