{"id":3392,"date":"2010-11-04T07:00:12","date_gmt":"2010-11-04T14:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=3392"},"modified":"2013-11-24T21:47:15","modified_gmt":"2013-11-25T05:47:15","slug":"why-turkeys-are-called-turkeys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2010\/11\/why-turkeys-are-called-turkeys\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Turkeys Are Called Turkeys"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pf-content\"><p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/turkey-strut.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-3396\" title=\"Turkey Strut\" alt=\"Turkey Strut\" src=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/turkey-strut-e1288834018876.jpg\" width=\"340\" height=\"510\" \/><\/a><a href='http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com' title='Interesting Facts'>Today I found out<\/a> why turkeys are called turkeys.<\/p>\n<p>In the 16th century, when North American turkeys were first introduced en masse to Europe, there was another bird that was popularly imported throughout Europe and, most relevant to this article, England, called a guinea fowl.\u00a0 This guinea fowl was imported from Madagascar via the Ottoman Empire.\u00a0 The merchants who did this were, thus, known as &#8220;turkey merchants&#8221;.\u00a0 The guinea fowl themselves eventually were popularly referred to as &#8220;turkey fowl&#8221;, similar to how other product imported through the Ottoman Empire acquired their names, such as &#8220;turkey corn&#8221;, &#8220;turkey wheat&#8221;, etc.<\/p>\n<p>The North American turkey was then first introduced to Spain in the very early 16th century and later popularly introduced to all of Europe shortly thereafter.\u00a0 The North American turkey was thought by many to be a species of the type of guinea fowl that was imported via the Ottoman Empire and thus, began also being called a &#8220;turkey fowl&#8221; in English, with this eventually being shortened to just &#8220;turkey&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>If you liked this article, you might also enjoy our new popular podcast, The BrainFood Show (<a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-brainfoodshow\/id1350586459\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">iTunes<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/36xpXQMPVXhWJzMoCHPJKd\" target=\"_blank\">Spotify<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/playmusic.app.goo.gl\/?ibi=com.google.PlayMusic&#038;isi=691797987&#038;ius=googleplaymusic&#038;apn=com.google.android.music&#038;link=https:\/\/play.google.com\/music\/m\/Insimdi4g6puyyr4qbt6tup5b6m?t%3DThe_BrainFood_Show%26pcampaignid%3DMKT-na-all-co-pr-mu-pod-16\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Google Play Music<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/feed\/brainfood\/\" target=\"_blank\">Feed<\/a>), as well as:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2010\/07\/turkey-does-not-make-you-drowsy-after-you-eat-it\/\" target=\"_blank\">Turkey Does Not Make You Drowsy After You Eat It<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2010\/11\/10-interesting-thanksgiving-facts\/\" target=\"_blank\">10 Fascinating Thanksgiving Facts<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2010\/11\/the-song-jingle-bells-is-thought-to-have-been-written-for-a-thanksgiving-sunday-school-program\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Song \u201cJingle Bells\u201d Is Thought to Have Been Written for a Thanksgiving Sunday School Program<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2010\/11\/the-pilgrims-did-not-celebrate-the-first-thanksgiving-in-america\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Pilgrims Did Not Celebrate the First Thanksgiving in America<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2010\/11\/the-pilgrims-didnt-wear-all-black-and-white-clothing-with-buckled-top-hats\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Pilgrims Didn\u2019t Wear All Black and White Clothing with Buckled Top Hats<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span id=\"bonusfacts\">Bonus<\/span> Facts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A group of turkeys is technically called a &#8220;rafter&#8221;, though they are often incorrectly referred to as a &#8220;gobble&#8221; or simply a &#8220;flock&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li>Due to the reputation of turkeys being incredibly stupid, the term &#8220;turkey&#8221; began being used as a slang, derogatory term meaning something akin to &#8220;idiot&#8221; around the early 20th century.\u00a0 (Note: domestic turkeys are shockingly stupid, but wild turkeys are not.)<\/li>\n<li>The phrase &#8220;Turkey Shoot&#8221; comes from the mid-20th century practice of tying turkeys behind logs, with only their heads exposed, and then holding a marksmanship competition, trying to shoot the turkey&#8217;s head off.<\/li>\n<li>One generally considered fictitious origin for naming a turkey such, comes from the Hebrew &#8220;tuki&#8221; (Hebrew for peacock).\u00a0 If no one knew anything about the history of the turkey being introduced to the English speaking world, this might seem very plausible.\u00a0 However, the historical evidence does not back up the claims here.<\/li>\n<li>A similarly reasoned argument states that it comes from the fact that turkeys sometimes make a &#8220;turk turk turk turk&#8221; sound.\u00a0 If that&#8217;s where it came from, rather than what the historical evidence suggests, I&#8217;d think we&#8217;d have called them &#8220;gobbles&#8221;.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve raised domestic turkeys (don&#8217;t ask) and don&#8217;t remember them ever making a &#8220;turk turk turk&#8221; sound, though they do make a variety of sounds.\u00a0 The gobble sound, from the male turkeys, on the other hand, sounds exactly like you&#8217;d expect from the name and they do this all the time.<\/li>\n<li>The suit on Sesame Street&#8217;s Big Bird was originally made up of over 4000 white turkey feathers dyed bright yellow.<\/li>\n<li>Due to the white meat being the most popular part of a turkey, turkeys have been bred to have huge breasts.\u00a0 So much so that modern day domesticated turkeys are no longer typically able to mate, due to the breasts getting in the way of the male mounting the female.\u00a0 As such, most hatcheries use artificial insemination to fertilize the eggs of the domestic turkey.<\/li>\n<li>A somewhat popular dance in the very early 20th century was the &#8220;turkey trot&#8221;.\u00a0 This was a dance where the participants would quite literally just strut around like a turkey, in circles around one another.\u00a0 This was generally banned due to its lewd nature, which ended up making it a pretty popular dance.\u00a0 You can see a good example of this dance if you watch the end of the movie <em><a title=\"O Brother, Where Art Thou\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B00003CXRM?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=vicastingcom-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B00003CXRM\" target=\"_blank\">O Brother, Where Art Thou?<\/a><\/em>, when George Clooney does this dance on the stage while performing <em>Man of Constant Sorrow<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<span class=\"collapseomatic \" id=\"id69f4fe2381738\"  tabindex=\"0\" title=\"Expand for References:\"    >Expand for References:<\/span><div id=\"target-id69f4fe2381738\" class=\"collapseomatic_content \">\n<ul>\n<li><a title=\"Etymology of Turkey\" href=\"http:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/index.php?term=turkey\" target=\"_blank\">Etymology of Turkey<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Name of Turkey\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Name_of_Turkey\" target=\"_blank\">Name of Turkey<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Turkey History and Lore\" href=\"http:\/\/urbanext.illinois.edu\/turkey\/history.cfm\" target=\"_blank\">Turkey History and Lore<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Turkey-bird\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Turkey_%28bird%29\" target=\"_blank\">Turkey (bird)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Etymology of Turkey\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1993\/01\/02\/opinion\/l-etymology-of-turkey-437693.html\" target=\"_blank\">Etymology of Turkey<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Image Source\" href=\"http:\/\/www.jdstaxidermy.com\/photo_album2.html\" target=\"_blank\">Image Source<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a href='http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com' title='Interesting Facts'>Today I found out<\/a> why turkeys are called turkeys. In the 16th century, when North American turkeys were first introduced en masse to Europe, there was another bird that was popularly imported throughout Europe and, most relevant to this article, England, called a guinea fowl.\u00a0 This guinea fowl was imported from Madagascar via the Ottoman Empire.\u00a0 The merchants who did [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,3,2979,2981],"tags":[651,76,652,484,482],"class_list":["post-3392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-animals","category-today-i-found-out","category-holiday-facts-2","category-thanksgiving-holiday-facts-2","tag-bird","tag-food","tag-name","tag-thanksgiving","tag-turkey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3392"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27896,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3392\/revisions\/27896"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}