True Blue --now "CHICKEN"

[Jonathan Lighter]

If I may speak for Sir James Murray and the other editors of the Oxford English Dictionary, "Gotcha!"

     "Fowl, sb....3. The prevailing sense: A ‘barn-door fowl’, a domestic cock or hen; a bird of the genus Gallus. In the U.S. applied also to ‘a domestic duck or turkey’ (Cent. Dict.)."

  So its only you (I mean us - I mean we) Colonials who'd be confused.

  JL

Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Charles Doyle
Subject: Re: True Blue --now "CHICKEN"
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I.e., 1827 for CHICKEN n.1.1.d, "A domestic fowl of any age"? That seems like a poor definition. Turkeys and ducks are domestic fowl, but they aren't referred to as chickens.

Why, in the OED (s.v. CHICKEN "Additions Series 1993") does CHICKEN-BREAST gain an entry, when "chicken-leg," "chicken-wing," and the names of other edible chicken parts do not?

--Charlie
__________________________________________________

---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 14:54:29 -0800
>From: Jonathan Lighter
>Subject: Re: True Blue
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU

>
>Assuming that "ram-chicken" simply means "rooster," it antedates the modern use of "chicken" in OED (1812) by about two generations.
>
> JL

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