Talk:Wishbone

(Whence this wishy-washy notion?)

Anyone have an idea how the tradition of making a wish on breaking a poultry wishbone began? In what part of the world? How ancient is the custom?
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.237.13.246 (talk) 21:57, 23 January 2005‎

   Dictionary.com cites 2017 Random House Dictionary in claiming (as to only "wishbone"'s etymology!)

"1850-55, Americanism; wish + bone; so called from the custom of pulling the furcula of a cooked fowl apart until it breaks, the person holding the longer (sometimes shorter) piece being granted a wish"

and some vague attributions to Roman reports citing otherwise unattributed claims about ancient Etruscan use of (what sounded to me like) behavior of live (and non-vivisected) poultry for undefined sortilege -- ("Thee have I not seen in flight, yet thou thinkest me dim, in trusting them more than thee??", i 'spose) -- as if that were reason to blame the ancients for our modern nonsense about dead poultry.
--Jerzy•t 03:23 [tho ready to be saved by around 01:00] 18 June 2017
.

   Oops! Ignore the immediately preceding cranky old bastard, and consult Wishbone#In folklore, which says

The custom of two persons pulling on the bone with the one receiving the larger part making a wish developed in the early 17th century.

(Yet, indeed, non-destructive furcular divination, re November weather, was practiced by the 1455).
--Jerzy•t 03:23, 18 June 2017 (UTC)