merrythought

noun

- The forked bone (furcula) of a bird, especially a chicken or turkey, traditionally pulled apart in a game of chance.

- The wishbone used in a traditional custom in which two people make wishes while breaking the bone.

- A symbol of luck, hope, and future good fortune.

- Historically, the breastbone area of a fowl associated with festive meals and social amusement.

Collins Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Oxford English Dictionary, Dictionary com

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WORD ORIGIN


A plain compound of merry + thought. The word first surfaces in John Florio's Italian–English dictionary A Worlde of Wordes (1598). Merry descends from Old English myrge ("pleasing, agreeable"), from a Proto-Germanic root that probably first meant "short-lasting" — pleasure being the thing that makes time pass quickly. The "thoughts" in question were the hopeful, marriage-minded ones a young person formed while pulling the bone.

The custom itself is far older than the English language. Ancient Etruscans are believed to have preserved chicken wishbones because they considered birds prophetic creatures. The Romans adopted the practice, and it eventually spread throughout Europe. By medieval times, breaking the bone for luck had become a popular pastime.

The scientific name, furcula, is the Latin diminutive of furca, "fork" — the same root that gives us fork itself and bifurcate. Wishbone is the later American replacement, recorded from around 1860; the British custom it describes is older, dating to the early seventeenth century, when the bone was still a merrythought.

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WISHFUL THINKING

The merrythought reveals something rather interesting about human nature. Faced with big uncertainties, people reach for small rituals. Tossing coins into fountains, crossing fingers, knocking on wood, or carrying a lucky charm. None of it changes what's going to happen. But it does make positive an expectation about the future.

The wishbone works well because it's shared. Two people, one bone, both hoping — and a small flicker of suspense before the snap.

You'd think we'd have outgrown all this. We live surrounded by data, forecasts, and probabilities that can tell us, more or less, how things are likely to go. And yet people still buy lottery tickets, still wear the lucky socks, still keep the family traditions alive. The fact that the merrythought has lasted four centuries suggests we need something information can't give us — a moment of hopeful not-knowing.

In our house, with no chicken bone to hand, we've kept the habit alive another way. When the clock lines up — 11:11, or a mirrored 14:41 — someone quickly says or texts “MaW” our abbreviation for "Make a Wish!" Same impulse, different bone.

Helga & Paul Smith

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