"Even turkeys can fly" (1992)

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:48 PM -0400 9/17/04, Wilson Gray wrote:
>On Sep 17, 2004, at 2:52 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
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>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>Subject:      Re: "Even turkeys can fly" (1992)
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>>>On Sep 17, 2004, at 2:31 PM, Mullins, Bill wrote:
>>>
>>>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>>>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>>Poster:       "Mullins, Bill" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
>>>>Subject:      Re: "Even turkeys can fly" (1992)
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>>>>Arthur Carlson, station manager of WKRP radio in Cincinnati, OH:
>>>>
>>>>"As God is my witness . . . I thought turkeys could fly."   30 Oct 78
>>>>
>>>
>>>FWIW, real, i.e. wild turkeys can and do fly. It's only the synthetic,
>>>Butterball-type of turkey that can't fly.
>>>
>>along with turduckens
>>
>>larry
>>
>
>Say what?
>-Wilson

A turducken is a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken.
Popularized by John Madden during telecasts of Thanksgiving Day NFL
games in Detroit and Dallas, it had a robust independent existence,
as discussed at length in threads here archived at
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?S2=ads-l&q=turducken&s=&f=&a=&b=
which includes a biography from the Times by Amanda Hesser published
shortly before Thanksgiving 2002 ("Turkey finds its inner duck (and
chicken)"). A later posting from Barry indicates that Paul Prudhomme
(a.k.a. K-Paul) trademarked it in 1980.  The turducken is a bird of
many fine qualities, but flying is not among them.

larry