Fowl Question—Chicken or Cock?

The approach of Halloween reminds me of my days as a costumer in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s and how I fell in love with rubber chickens. The boss told me that he had ordered some rubber chickens for one of the big seasons—Halloween or Mardi Gras. I thought “How disgusting.” However, when I opened the box, my first gander at the chicken resulted in love. I grabbed one of the rubber chickens by the neck, and when my friends dropped by to visit, I thrust it at them, asking “Had lunch?”

So taken was I with rubber chickens that I made up a song about them, “Flying Rubber Chicken,” to the tune of “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” I created a mailing sticker which featured a flying rubber chicken with the motto “Fare is fowl and fowl is fare.” In addition, I designed and made a rubber chicken costume which I wore every Halloween for about 20 years. Each year, I put a slight twist to the costume. One year, I added a guitar to become Chicken a la King (Elvis). Another year, I added a Hunny Pot and red Pooh tunic to become Chicken Pooh. Another Halloween I put a big question mark on the front of the costume and carried an egg around to become the “which came first” question.

Sadly, I gave up the chicken costume for two reasons: (1) I wore it and a replacement out; (2) public secondary schools do not take kindly to their English teachers showing up in chicken costumes on Halloween. (In other words, I finally had to get out of that chicken outfit.)

So what is the connection between chicken outfits and “Be-Worded”? A friend, who will remain unnamed, recently became enamored of the word “cockalorum.” The “Oxford English Dictionary” describes the word as an informal usage, deriving from “cock” and apparently intended as “playful and arbitrary,” with the definition “Applied to a person: = Little or young cock, bantam; self-important little man.”  Many side comments went around about the opening syllable of that word. As I try to keep “Be-Worded” somewhat family-friendly, I will not discuss the colloquial associations with “cock,” but I will note that the “Chambers Slang Dictionary” devotes three and a half pages to “cock” and compound words beginning with “cock.”

Also, how did English end up with two words, chicken and cock, for the “domestic fowl”? Why did I fall in love with a rubber chicken and not a rubber cock? (Remember: family-friendly!) Why did my friend become enamored with the word “cockalorum” and not “chickenalorum”? As best as I can tell, both “chicken” and “cock” can be traced back to the same Teutonic, that is Germanic, root word. Evidently, “chicken” evolved and became more popular in Germanic circles, while “cock” evolved and became more popular in English and French circles. Therefore, English ended up with two different words for the same fowl.

If all of this information is not thrilling enough, stayed tuned, Faithful Readers! In my next installment on “Be-Worded,” I will address What Does Shakespeare Say—About Chickens. (Also, Chaucer features chickens in his Nun’s Priest’s Tale, which I will discuss, as well.)