Woodchucks and Beavers

[Safiya]

Ok, I know this is a weird topic for a debate... but yeah.

The question is: Why are woodchucks called woodchucks? Why didn't someone name beavers woodchucks and name woodchucks beavers? I think it might have made more sense that way myself. What do you think?

[Soleia Reiss]

I've often wondered that myself. Here's my theory: two guys were in the woods when they happened upon a small furry creature, at first the one thought it was a piece of wood and he said "It looks like a wood chunk!" his friend misheard him and went and told his friends about the "wood chuck" they'd disocovered in the forest.

Or maybe not.

[Safiya]

Maybe not Iggy

But I sure wish I could talk to whoever named woodchucks, I'd let him/her know what I think

[Colleen MqCray]

You see, the folks who made up names for the different animals wanted to give us fodder for pointless conversations, so they put their collective brains together and said, "Hey, here's an animal who chucks wood, and another one that doesn't... let's call the one that doesn't woodchuck and make everyone wonder what we are smoking!"

[Safiya]

Nice one Colleen Funny though

[TFE]

Well, first off, I think we need to determine what the original name for a woodchuck is. According to what I can find, it was originally from an entirely different language, apparently Algonquian (Native American). Wuchak and otchek/otchig, all sounding fairly similar to "woodchuck" are several previous foreign names of the woodchuck/groundhog as far as I can determine. Obviously, words taken from foreign languages often get butchered. You should be able to think of an example.

Beaver seems to be a similar story, as far as I can tell, except perhaps it may not have been distorted so much as taken from.

[Colleen MqCray]

tfe said:

Well, first off, I think we need to determine what the original name for a woodchuck is. According to what I can find, it was originally from an entirely different language, apparently Algonquian (Native American). Wuchak and otchek/otchig, all sounding fairly similar to "woodchuck" are several previous foreign names of the woodchuck/groundhog as far as I can determine. Obviously, words taken from foreign languages often get butchered. You should be able to think of an example.

Beaver seems to be a similar story, as far as I can tell, except perhaps it may not have been distorted so much as taken from.

I knew that

I just think my way of looking at it is more fun

[Dac Bailu]

Well, which sounds better: beaver dam, or woodchuck dam?