Why Americans call Turkey 'Turkey'

"Turkey" the bird is native to North America. But "turkey" the word is a geographic mess—a tribute to the vagaries of colonial trade and conquest, writes Zach Goldhammer in the Atlantic. Read on:

Within the turkey lies the tangled history of the world.

OK, not quite. But not far off, either.

"Turkey" the bird is native to North America. But "turkey" the word is a geographic mess—a tribute to the vagaries of colonial trade and conquest. As you might have suspected, the English term for the avian creature likely comes from Turkey the country. Or, more precisely, from Turkish merchants in the 15th and 16th centuries.

How exactly the word "turkey" made its way into the English language is in dispute. The linguist Mario Pei theorized that more than five centuries ago, Turks from the commercial hub of Constantinople (which the Ottomans conquered in the mid-15th century) sold wild fowl from Guinea in West Africa to European markets, leading the English to refer to the bird as “turkey cock” or “turkey coq” (coq being French for “rooster”), and eventually “turkey” for short. When British settlers arrived in Massachusetts, they applied the same terms to the wild fowl they spotted in the New World, even though the birds were a different species than their African counterparts.

The etymology expert Mark Forsyth, meanwhile, claims that Turkish traders brought guinea fowl to England from Madagascar, off the coast of southeast Africa, and that Spanish conquistadors then introduced American fowl to Europe, where they were conflated with the “turkeys” from Madagascar. Dan Jurafsky, another linguist, argues that Europeans imported guinea fowl from Ethiopia (which was sometimes mixed up with India) via the Mamluk Turks, and then confused the birds with North American fowl shipped across the Atlantic by the Portuguese.

Here’s where things get even more bewildering. Turkey, which has no native turkeys, does not call turkey "turkey." The Turks “knew the bird wasn’t theirs,” Forsyth explains, so they “made a completely different mistake and called it a hindi, because they thought the bird was probably Indian.” They weren't alone. The French originally called the American bird poulet d’Inde (literally “chicken from India”), which has since been abbreviated to dinde, and similar terms exist in languages ranging from Polish to Hebrew to Catalan. Then there’s the oddly specific Dutch word kalkoen, which, as a contraction of Calicut-hoen, literally means “hen from Calicut,” a major Indian commercial center at the time. These names may have arisen from the mistaken belief at the time that the New World was the Indies, or the sense that the turkey trade passed through India.

So what is the bird called in India? It may be hindi in Turkey, but in Hindi it’s ṭarki. Some Indian dialects, however, use the word piru or peru, the latter being how the Portuguese refer to the American fowl, which is not native to Peru but may have become popular in Portugal as Spanish and Portuguese explorers conquered the New World. The expansion of Western colonialism only complicated matters: Malaysians call turkey ayam blander (“Dutch chicken”), while Cambodians opt for moan barang (“French chicken”).

Then there are the turkey truthers and linguistic revisionists. In the early 1990s, for instance, a debate broke out in the “letter to the editor” section of The New York Times over the possible Hebrew origins of the word "turkey." On December 13, 1992, Rabbi Harold M. Kamsler suggested (as a follow-up to a Thanksgiving-themed piece titled “One Strange Bird”) that the New World fowl received its English name from Christopher Columbus’s interpreter, Luis de Torres, a Jewish convert to Catholicism. In an October 12, 1492 letter to a friend in Spain, de Torres had referred to the American bird he encountered as a tuki, the word for “peacock” in ancient Hebrew and “parrot” in modern Hebrew (a more dubious version of this story claims that Columbus himself was a Jew who hid his identity in the aftermath of the Spanish Inquisition but drew on his lineage to christen the fowl).

The guinea fowl (left) vs.

the North American turkey (Wikipedia)

Kamsler’s letter, however, was met with a firm rebuttal from the president of the Association for the Study of Jewish Languages, David L Gold. “Rabbi Kamsler's explanation, not original with him, is an old yarn spun in uninformed Jewish circles,” Gold wrote. “Along with countless other pseudoscientific claims about supposed Hebrew influence on English and other languages, the myth of the Hebrew origin of ‘turkey’ was quietly exploded in volume 2 of Jewish Linguistic Studies (1990).”

The turkey’s scientific name doesn't make much more sense than its vernacular one. Its binomial nomenclature, Meleagris gallopavo, is a hodgepodge. The first name comes from a Greek myth in which the goddess Artemis turned the grieving sisters of the slain Meleager into guinea fowls. The second name is a portmanteau: Gallo is derived from the Latin word for rooster, gallus, while pavo is the Latin word for peacock. So, effectively, the official name for a turkey is guinea-fowl-rooster-peacock.

Reflecting on his interview with Mario Pei, NPR’s Robert Krulwich noted that “for 500 years now, this altogether American, very gallant if not particularly intelligent animal has never once been given an American name.” But the turkey does have many authentically American names—Americans just choose not to use them. After all, pre-Aztec and Aztec peoples domesticated the turkey more than a millennium before Columbus reached the New World (the Aztecs called the bird huehxolotl). There are numerous Native American words for the bird, including the Blackfoot term omahksipi’kssii, which literally means “big bird.” It’s a bit vague, sure, but it certainly beats guinea-fowl-rooster-peacock.

After Trump saved Drumstick, we still have to ask: Why do we pardon a bird every year?

According to the White House Historical Association, the tradition of pardoning dates back to President Abraham Lincoln's clemency to a turkey, a speech given in 1863. "A live turkey had been brought home for the Christmas dinner, but [Lincoln's son Tad] interceded in behalf of its life. . . . [Tad's] plea was admitted and the turkey's life spared," White House reporter Noah Brooks wrote in an 1865 dispatch recalling the event, writes Melissa Kravitz in Mic. Read on: 

While millions of Americans are picking out their perfect, plastic-wrapped turkeys at supermarkets across the nation, President Trump is protecting one lucky turkey from a roasted fate.

In his first poultry-pardoning act as president, Trump pardoned a turkey named Drumstick. (A turkey named Wishbone, the runner-up in a White House Twitter poll, was not publicly pardoned but will join Drumstick in turkey retirement at Virginia Tech). Trump made several attempts to deliver jokes during the pardoning, including a jab at President Barack Obama, who pardoned two turkeys named Tater and Tot in 2016.

"As many of you know, I have been very active in overturning a number of executive actions by my predecessor. However, I have been informed by the White House counsel office, that Tater and Tot's pardons cannot, under any circumstances, be revoked," Trump said during this year's turkey pardon.

But why does the commander in chief of the United States of America, whose responsibilities most of the year have absolutely nothing to do with farm animals, pardon a turkey before Thanksgiving every year? Though President George Washington officially declared Thanksgiving as a national holiday in 1789, the tradition of pardoning a turkey came decades later.

According to the White House Historical Association, the tradition of pardoning dates back to President Abraham Lincoln's clemency to a turkey, a speech given in 1863. "A live turkey had been brought home for the Christmas dinner, but [Lincoln's son Tad] interceded in behalf of its life. . . . [Tad's] plea was admitted and the turkey's life spared," White House reporter Noah Brooks wrote in an 1865 dispatch recalling the event. Leave it to Honest Abe's son to continue the family legacy.

President Ronald Reagan with a White House turkey  Ron Edmonds/AP

In the 1870s, Rhode Island poultry farmer Horace Vose, known as "The Poultry King," sent slaughtered and dressed birds to presidents as gifts. Starting with President Ulysses S. Grant, these Vose turkeys, served at both Thanksgiving and Christmas, became a four-decade tradition, though there's no historical evidence that any turkeys were pardoned following the Lincoln era. 

When Vose passed away in 1913, the gifting of turkeys became fair game, and "turkey gifts had become established as a national symbol of good cheer," the White House Historical Association wrote.

These gifted turkeys, however, were all dead and ready for roasting, until 1947, when the National Turkey Federation and the Poultry and Egg National Board gifted live turkeys to President Harry Truman. Making a show of it, Truman staged a photo op with his 42-pound Texas tom, in an image that has become iconic with historic presidential pardoning.

President Harry Truman with a turkey in 1952  Henry Griffin/AP

The Truman Library, however, notes it has "no documents, speeches, newspaper clippings, photographs, or other contemporary records in our holdings which refer to Truman pardoning a turkey that he received as a gift in 1947, or at any other time during his Presidency." That turkey's fate was to end up on a platter for Christmas dinner.

President Bill Clinton pardons a turkey in 1999  PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS/AP

Several years later, President John F. Kennedy was said to have pardoned a live turkey at a 1963 celebration in which the turkey gifted to him had a sign hung around its neck reading, "Good eating, Mr. President." Nothing like a live turkey to put you off drumsticks! "We'll just let this one grow," Kennedy said of his gifted turkey and the LA Times headlined that event as a "presidential pardon," though it's unclear if the turkey actually survived beyond the holiday season.

During his term, President Richard Nixon chose to send the birds gifted to him to a local petting zoo rather than the White House kitchen, though, that was not deemed a pardon but rather perhaps an avoidance of guilt about eating an animal with which he had become acquainted. This event was not called Turkeygate, but it's never too late to go back and rename historical events.

In a Nov. 23, 1987 informal exchange with reporters, President Ronald Reagan became the first president in office to use the word "pardon," to distract from political conversation, specifically about the Iran-Contra affair. He referred jokingly to Charlie, a turkey gifted to him by The National Turkey Federation that was sent to a petting zoo, at the aptly named Frying Pan Farm in Fairfax, Virginia, and pardoned, the Guardian reported.

George H.W. Bush with a turkey at the White House  Marcy Nighswander/AP

It wasn't until November 17, 1989, that the tradition of turkey pardoning as we now know it took place. In his first Thanksgiving in office, President George H. W. Bush officially pardoned a Thanksgiving bird. "Let me assure you, and this fine tom turkey, that he will not end up on anyone's dinner table, not this guy. He's granted a presidential pardon as of right now," Bush told reporters. He also noted that the turkey looked nervous, a comment that his son, George W. Bush would reuse in his own future turkey pardoning, TIME noticed.

Every November since 1989, presidents have continued to pardon American turkeys, though that hasn't stopped them from gobbling down turkey at the White House's annual Thanksgiving dinner. Politics, ey?

What’s the real history of Black Friday?

It makes sense that the term “Black Friday” might refer to the single day of the year when retail companies finally go “into the black” (i.e. make a profit). The day after Thanksgiving is, of course, when crowds of turkey-stuffed shoppers descend on stores all over the country to take advantage of the season’s biggest holiday bargains. But the real story behind Black Friday is a bit more complicated—and darker—than that.

The first recorded use of the term “Black Friday” was applied not to holiday shopping but to financial crisis: specifically, the crash of the U.S. gold market on September 24, 1869. Two notoriously ruthless Wall Street financiers, Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, worked together to buy up as much as they could of the nation’s gold, hoping to drive the price sky-high and sell it for astonishing profits. On that Friday in September, the conspiracy finally unraveled, sending the stock market into free-fall and bankrupting everyone from Wall Street barons to farmers.

The most commonly repeated story behind the post-Thanksgiving shopping-related Black Friday tradition links it to retailers. As the story goes, after an entire year of operating at a loss (“in the red”) stores would supposedly earn a profit (“went into the black”) on the day after Thanksgiving, because holiday shoppers blew so much money on discounted merchandise. Though it’s true that retail companies used to record losses in red and profits in black when doing their accounting, this version of Black Friday’s origin is the officially sanctioned—but inaccurate—story behind the tradition.

In recent years, another myth has surfaced that gives a particularly ugly twist to the tradition, claiming that back in the 1800s Southern plantation owners could buy slaves at a discount on the day after Thanksgiving. Though this version of Black Friday’s roots has understandably led some to call for a boycott of the retail holiday, it has no basis in fact.

The true story behind Black Friday, however, is not as sunny as retailers might have you believe. Back in the 1950s, police in the city of Philadelphia used the term to describe the chaos that ensued on the day after Thanksgiving, when hordes of suburban shoppers and tourists flooded into the city in advance of the big Army-Navy football game held on that Saturday every year. Not only would Philly cops not be able to take the day off, but they would have to work extra-long shifts dealing with the additional crowds and traffic. Shoplifters would also take advantage of the bedlam in stores to make off with merchandise, adding to the law enforcement headache.

By 1961, “Black Friday” had caught on in Philadelphia, to the extent that the city’s merchants and boosters tried unsuccessfully to change it to “Big Friday” in order to remove the negative connotations. The term didn’t spread to the rest of the country until much later, however, and as recently as 1985 it wasn’t in common use nationwide. Sometime in the late 1980s, however, retailers found a way to reinvent Black Friday and turn it into something that reflected positively, rather than negatively, on them and their customers. The result was the “red to black” concept of the holiday mentioned earlier, and the notion that the day after Thanksgiving marked the occasion when America’s stores finally turned a profit. (In fact, stores traditionally see bigger sales on the Saturday before Christmas.)

The Black Friday story stuck, and pretty soon the term’s darker roots in Philadelphia were largely forgotten. Since then, the one-day sales bonanza has morphed into a four-day event, and spawned other “retail holidays” such as Small Business Saturday/Sunday and Cyber Monday. Stores started opening earlier and earlier on that Friday, and now the most dedicated shoppers can head out right after their Thanksgiving meal. According to a pre-holiday survey this year by the National Retail Federation, an estimated 135.8 million Americans definitely plan to shop over the Thanksgiving weekend (58.7 percent of those surveyed), though even more (183.8 million, or 79.6 percent) said they would or might take advantage of the online deals offered on Cyber Monday.

(Source: History)

Book Review: Karma gone bad?

Karma Gone Bad by Jenny Feldon

The world comes crumbling down when a New Yorker is forced to leave the country to settle down in the land of Karma, India. Blogger Jenny Feldon chronicles her not so-easy two-year journey in her memoir Karma Gone Bad: How I Learned to Love Mangos, Bollywood and Water Buffalo (November 5, 2013).     

The memoir opens with the much pampered princess packing her designer dresses, shoes and sling bags, as her husband Jay is transferred to India on a two-year contract. She dreams of making friends with glamorous expats, seeing lengths and breadths of India, practicing yoga at the land of yoga. However, it doesn’t take much time for the newly married 27-year-old Jenny to realize that the country she had imagined, read and watched in movies was far from reality.  

The moment she arrives in Hyderabad, which she calls ‘Bad, to emphasize her bad experiences in the capital city of southern state Andhra Pradesh, she feels stuck. She not only misses her beauty sessions in New York, but also Starbucks, latest fashion trends, friends and colleagues who supported her back home. Adding to the woes, her husband Jay falls sick within two days of their arrival and she suffers food poisoning several times, unable to manage with the “spicy” food.

She finds mistakes and flaws in everybody and everything. She feels lonely in a country which is one of the most densely populated nations in the world and feels like losing her identity, as people address her “Madam” and not Jenny. “Here, I was no one. A parasitic extension of my husband, a hanger-on in the world of corporate transplants,” she laments and blames India even for that. She fails to become “the best Indian housewife”.

Jenny Feldon

She sees how life in India cannot become “a travelogue”, full of photographs and anecdotes about her exotic new life. Unable to cope with situations – in fact, Jenny’s little white Maltese, Tucker, copes better than her – she abruptly leaves her husband and India within six months. Jay, who arrives in the U.S. for Thanksgiving, discusses divorce and she sees her mistake. She returns to India, but with a change in the attitude and outlook.

She realizes what the universe had been trying to tell her all along: India didn’t need to change. Instead it is she who needs to change and promptly does it. She stops blaming India, keeps her unrealistic expectations to the side and accepts the country as it is: “With my new plan in place to embrace all (or at least some) things Indian, Bollywood didn’t seem like a bad place to start.” She enjoys the remaining days of her stay in India, making friends with people, visiting local market, cooking and eating Indian food. Her visit to Taj Mahal in Agra, her interest in learning Hindi and practicing yoga brings the circle of karma to the full. At last, she successfully finds beauty in the chaos in the land of karma.

Readers – if not all, at least in India – will hate the narrator for the first three-fourth of the book. Her never ending childish tantrums, complaints and insecurities are spread all over the first 75% of the book. One wonders why and how can she complain so much – whether it is for not getting a latte, or for “brown people” staring at her, or for people not standing in the queue like Americans, or fearing for the safety of her dog!

Though she makes an effort to enjoy her stay by embracing the Indian culture and befriending Indians in the last quarter of the book, her initial complaints are too strong to forget and remain in the back of mind. She looks dismissing the Indian culture, not because India is poor or less than any other country, but because it is not like other western countries and the people are not like Americans!   

This sets an example for those who would like to know what happens if a person with preconceived notion goes to live in a foreign country. There are several references to India as a “third world”, which is quite surprising given the fact that it is one of the competing economies and has been outsourcing its talent across the world, mainly to the U.S., over the past several years.

The memoir has some instances where readers wonder at the (poor) general knowledge of the author who keeps wondering often at small things. When she wonders, “Shouldn’t there be light? Buildings? No city I’d ever seen looked so dark from the sky,” we feel like showing her the satellite image of India on Diwali night released by NASA last year.

When driver Venkat Reddy proudly tells her that he has brought a “foreign car”, Hyundai, to take them, it sounds as exaggerated as when she exclaims that the steering wheel on the right-hand side “made the car seem cartoonish” as if she were “on a ride at Disneyland”! We feel like reminding her that not just India, there are other 74 other countries, including the United Kingdom, which have the steering wheel on the right-hand side and drive on the left side of the road.   

What more, she sees a buffalo on the street and confuses it with a cow! We can’t blame her for not watching National Geographic or Discovery or Animal Planet, because later at some point of time she mentions that she has seen buffaloes in zoos. She offends Indian readers when she wants the “puja” (prayer) room for her Maltese.

The woman who lived in the US by Zagat and not by Lonely Planet, suffers food poisoning time and again, she buys expired imported canned food and depends on takeaway pizzas, but dares not to cook with whatever is available; she doesn’t wash the clothes for the first six weeks because the house does not have a washing machine, she doesn’t even get a faintest idea of buying a washing machine; she can’t drink coffee because she can’t get a latte and she doesn’t think of purchasing a coffeemaker either; she worries about charcoal pressed dresses, but not think of buying a iron and press her clothes; she worries about her manicure, but never tries to do it by herself; she looks for a yoga studio, but never tries practicing at home.

Her woes never end and she fails to open her eyes even when an Australian tourist tells her to learn the language to know the place and the people, as “the words come only when you teach yourself new ways to think about them”. Instead of sympathizing with the author, Indian readers get annoyed at her tantrums.

Things become easy when she gets the real meaning of “When in Rome, do as the Romans do!” After all, her “life in India was a big burnt, mishappen cookie – delicious in spite of its imperfections”. Maybe she could have narrated more on the issues like buffaloes, mangoes, Bollywood, electricity, rainfall, traffic and others after her “enlightenment”.  

As one can hate and love India at the same time, the author has done both – hated before her “enlightenment” and loved and respected after that. The narration is hilarious and honest. It gives a lesson as to what to expect in a foreign country and to learn to enjoy life’s smallest moments, be it “eating mangoes” or listening to “Bollywood songs”. 

Note: Read the original review in Kannada published in Khushi, Kannada Prabha on Dec. 08, 2013, here...