This disambiguation page is within the scope of WikiProject Disambiguation, an attempt to structure and organize all disambiguation pages on Wikipedia. If you wish to help, you can edit the page attached to this talk page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project or contribute to the discussion.DisambiguationWikipedia:WikiProject DisambiguationTemplate:WikiProject DisambiguationDisambiguation articles
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
"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)[reply]
