It has always bothered me that turkeys (the bird) has the same name as Turkey (the country) but, like most things, I just let it go. But today, inspired by the sight of a young family of turkeys in the backyard (the rafter of turkeys pictured below) , I did a little internet research. Turns out that the British thought the bird from North America resembled a different bird that had been imported into Europe from Turkey for years.
The "Indian" peoples (Native Americans) I always knew were misnamed because Columbus et. al. thought they had made it to India, but I had never made the association with the French word for the American turkey (dinde = d'inde = from India). At least the French were consistently incorrect: all that foreign exotic stuff must be from India!
If only we hadn't started talking to the Native Americans, we might be calling the tomato (derived from Aztec word for wolf peach) an "Indian peach" (or would it be a "Turkish peach"?)
hey, where did my comment go? I said that this was a very informative post...and saves me to trouble of ever looking this up myself. I've often wondered what the connection was between the 2 Turkeys too.
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