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Turkey Bird

Filed Under January 2007, columns

Rhymes with “murky.”

Dear Word Detective: In the South side of Chicago, the term “turkey bird” is often used to describe a person who was born in Ireland. Although both my parents were Irish American, my father was a “turkey bird,” while my mother was born in the United States. My siblings and I often affectionately referred to our father and his Irish-born friends as “turkey birds.” Neither my father nor his friends ever took offense to this term and, in fact, used the term themselves to define a personâ€™s exact roots. Recently one of my brothers was at a family party and started to discuss the origin of this term with a nephew (whose father also was born in Ireland). A woman, who is not of Irish heritage herself, but whose husband was born in Ireland, overheard the conversation and took great offense to the discussion. From where did this term originate? Is this term used throughout the United States? Has the nature of this term changed? Is it now considered offensive? Was it always offensive and my father and his friends just had thick skins? Kathleen Klinger.

Yes, yes, no, maybe, and beats me, in no particular order. Just kidding, but that’s five questions you’ve got there.

So the first logical question would seem to be whether any of this has anything to do with the bird we call a turkey, and the answer is a resounding “maybe.” Compounding this uncertainty is the fact that the “turkey” bird is not, in fact, from Turkey the country, but is actually native to Mexico and was first domesticated by the Incas and the Aztecs. Introduced to Europe by the Spanish Conquistadors, the Mexican birds were called “turkeys” by popular association with “Turkey cocks,” entirely different birds which had for centuries been imported from Turkish (Ottoman) colonies in Africa.

As to why an Irish-born person resident in another country would be known as a “turkey” or “turkey bird,” the crystal ball gets a bit cloudy. This term seems to be largely heard in the US, where “turkey” has long been slang, in reference to the bird’s legendary stupidity, for something (or someone) of little value, so there’s a possibility that it is simply another derogatory sense of this slang “turkey.”

More likely, however, is the possibility that “turkey” in this sense is a development of “Turk,” a native of Turkey, which has long been used in a derogatory slang sense in many contexts to mean a person lacking “civilized” qualities. “Turk” has been used in the US as slang for a person of Irish birth or descent since at least 1914, while the form “turkey” in the same sense is first found in the 1930s.

Yet another possibility, bypassing Turkey entirely, is that “turk” and “turkey” in this sense is derived from the Irish word “torc,” meaning “hog or boar.”

Whatever the source, “turkey” or “turk” as slang for a native-born Irish person is clearly at least mildly derogatory. That your father and his friends joked about it is to their credit.

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