There’s a lot more to Thanksgiving than just the turkey and the Pilgrims. And though most celebrations will break out the cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie, there are a number of other customs that you might be less aware of (and some that are becoming too ubiquitous to miss).

1. THE TURKEY TROT FOOTRACE

Many towns host brisk morning runs to lessen the guilt about the impending feast (distances and times vary from race to race, but the feel-good endorphins are universal). The oldest known Turkey Trot footrace took place in Buffalo, New York, and has been happening every year since 1896. Nearly 13,000 runners participated in the 4.97 mile race last year.

2. THE GREAT GOBBLER GALLOP IN CUERO, TEXAS

During their annual TurkeyFest in November, they gather a bunch of turkeys and have the “Great Gobbler Gallop,” a turkey race. It started in 1908 when a turkey dressing house opened in town. Early in November, farmers would herd their turkeys down the road toward the dressing house so the birds could be prepared for Thanksgiving. As you can imagine, this was quite a spectacle—as many as 20,000 turkeys have been part of this “march”. People gathered to watch, and eventually the first official festival was formed around the event in 1912. The final event of the celebration is the Great Gobbler Gallop, a race between the Cuero turkey champ and the champ from Worthington, Minnesota (they have a TurkeyFest as well). Each town holds a heat and the best time between the towns wins. The prize is a four-foot trophy called “The Traveling Turkey Trophy of Tumultuous Triumph.”

3. FRANKSGIVING

From 1939 to 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving up by a week. In ’39, Thanksgiving, traditionally held on the last Thursday of November, fell on the 30th. Since enough people would wait until after Thanksgiving to start their Christmas shopping, Roosevelt was concerned that having the holiday so late in the month would mess up retail sales at a time when he was trying hard to pull Americans out of the Great Depression. It didn’t entirely go over well though—some states observed FDR’s change, and others celebrated what was being called the “Republican” Thanksgiving on the traditional, last-Thursday date. Colorado, Mississippi, and Texas all considered both Thanksgivings to be holidays. Today, we’ve basically split the difference—Thanksgiving is held on the fourth Thursday of November, regardless of whether that’s the last Thursday of the month or not.

4. THE PRESIDENTIAL TURKEY PARDON

The story goes that since at least Harry Truman, it has been tradition for the President of the U.S. to save a couple of birds from becoming someone’s feast. Records only go back to George H.W. Bush doing it, though some say the tradition goes all the way back to Abraham Lincoln pardoning his son’s pet turkey. (Lincoln is also the President who originally declared that the holiday be held on the last Thursday of November.) In recent years, the public has gotten to name the turkeys in online polls; the paired turkeys (the one you see in pictures and a backup) have gotten creative names such as Stars and Stripes, Biscuit and Gravy, Marshmallow and Yam, Flyer and Fryer, Apple and Cider, and Honest and Abe last year.

5. THANKSGIVING PARADES

Everyone knows about the Macy’s Parade, but for a more historically accurate parade, check out America’s Hometown Thanksgiving Parade in Plymouth. The parade starts with a military flyover and continues with floats and costumed people taking the parade-goers from the 17th century to the present time. There are nationally recognized Drum and Bugle Corps, re-enactment units from every period of American history, and military marching units. And military bands play music honoring the men and women who serve in each branch: the Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force, and the Coast Guard.

6. BLACK FRIDAY

Black Friday, of course, is the day-after sales extravaganza that major (and minor) retailers participate in. Most people think that the term comes from the day of the year when retail stores make their profits go from red to black, but other sources have it originating from police officers in Philadelphia. They referred to the day as Black Friday because of the heavy traffic and higher propensity for accidents. Also, just because you hear that it’s “the busiest shopping day of the season” on the news, don’t believe it. It’s one of the busiest days, but typically, it’s hardly ever the busiest, though it typically ranks somewhere in the top 10. The busiest shopping day of the year is usually the Saturday before Christmas.

7. CYBER MONDAY

Black Friday is quickly being rivaled in popularity by Cyber Monday. It’s a fairly recent phenomenon—it didn’t even have a name until 2005. But there’s truth to it—77 percent of online retailers at the time reported an increase in sales on that particular day, and as online shopping has continued to grow and become more convenient, retailers have scheduled their promotions to follow suit.

8. BUY NOTHING DAY

And in retaliation for Black Friday, there’s Buy Nothing Day. To protest consumerism, many people informally celebrate BND. It was first “celebrated” in 1992, but didn’t settle on its day-after-Thanksgiving date until 1997, where it has been ever since. It’s also observed internationally, but outside of North America the day of observance is the Saturday after our Thanksgiving.

9. FOOTBALL

It’s a common sight across the U.S.: parents, cousins, aunts, and uncles passed out on the couch watching football after dinner. Well, we have the first Detroit Lions owner, G.A. Richards, to thank for the tradition of Thanksgiving football. He saw it as a way to get people to his games. CBS was the first on the bandwagon when they televised their first Thanksgiving game in 1956. The first color broadcast was in 1965—the Lions vs. the Baltimore Colts. Since the 1960s, the Dallas Cowboys have joined the Lions in hosting Thanksgiving Day games, and the NFL Network now airs a third game on that night.

10. NATIONAL DOG SHOW

Of course, if football isn’t your thing, there’s always the National Dog Show. It’s aired after the Macy’s Parade on NBC every year. Good luck telling your dad that he’ll be enjoying Springer Spaniels instead of the Lions or Cowboys, though.

A version of this story originally published in 2008.

On Thanksgiving and Black Friday, bargain hunters will camp outside stores, eagerly waiting for the doors to open—and camera phones and surveillance videos will capture any stampedes that might ensue. Surprisingly, this bad behavior isn’t a modern phenomenon; parents who pushed for Tickle-Me Elmo Dolls in 1996 or Cabbage Patch Dolls in 1983 weren’t even the first generation to attack in the aisles. For more than a century, shoppers have stampeded towards goods they really wanted, but didn’t quite need—sometimes with fatal results.

1. VICTORIA HALL TOY TRAMPLING

In 1883, the organizers of a variety show in Northern England promised the children attending the event that they would receive a toy upon exit (the organizers denied reports that the prizes were to go to the first children downstairs). The organizers had intended an orderly exit in which toys were handed out individually, but a surge of 1200 kids rushed to the stairwell, where, at the bottom of the stairs, a door had been propped open inwards about 20 inches and bolted in place. The bolted door stopped the stampeding children from exiting, and the crowd in the stairwell swelled. In the frenzy, children who fell were crushed or suffocated to death, while others were crushed by the mass of children still entering the stairwell. Almost 200 children were killed in the stampede; Queen Victoria’s private secretary wrote that the queen’s “heart bleeds for the suffering of the many bereaved parents.” The New York Times reported days later that the coveted box of toys was still positioned by the door.

2. CORONATION MUG CROWD CRUSH

In 1896, more than 500,000 people crowded onto a Moscow field early in the morning for the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II. The crowd anticipated gifts, including a pretzel and a commemorative cup—but when rumors swirled that not enough gifts were available, panic spread.

Witnesses reported a rage in which the stampeding crowd swore, shouted, and pushed toward the sheds where the gifts were held. Attendees who fell were trampled as the angry crowd pressed forward. Almost 1400 people were killed and 1300 were injured, but the celebration didn’t stop after the stampede. Casualties were moved from the site, and the festivities shifted elsewhere on the field. Many attendees were unaware that a tragedy had occurred just hours earlier.

3. CLEARANCE SALE STAMPEDE

In the 1930s, Eaton’s Department Store in Winnipeg, Canada held clearance sales every day in January and February. Depression era shoppers lined up to buy items on steep discount, and smaller store owners also lined up, hoping to resell goods at a markup. The competing consumers were highly aggressive; on one occasion, a man was knocked unconscious during the frenzy. One witness described how a floorwalker, “unperturbed by the sudden appearance of an injured man out cold … casually commandeered the nearest elevator [and] dragged the injured man by his feet into it.” The sales stampede persisted at the store for decades. In the 1950s, sales staff were known to throw products at crowds to allow shoppers to fight it out among themselves.

4. NYLON NASTINESS

By August 1945, World War II was almost over, and because nylon was no longer needed for the war effort, production of stockings was able to resume. The government was clear—they weren’t going to involve themselves with the distribution of stockings—and newspapers eagerly anticipated the mad rush women would make to the department stores that received early shipments.

As expected, over the next few months, eager shoppers gathered to snag one of the few available pairs. In New York, 30,000 women flooded a department store. In Pittsburgh, 40,000 women lined up for only 13,000 available pairs. Shoppers tore through the stores looking for the nylon display. Those who scored a pair had to fend off shoppers willing to rip the product from their hands. Some cities saw crowds, others saw chaos. In Augusta, Georgia, women fought physically over the nylons and knocked over display merchandise in their struggles.

The shortage was short-lived. The following March, production increased to 30 million pairs a month, and soon there was plenty for all.

5. TV TRAMPLE

In February 1954, the promise of discounted goods lured thousands of shoppers to the Hearn’s Department Store on 14th Street in New York City. More than 10,000 shoppers crammed the street, demanding the store be opened.

The Washington’s Birthday sale boasted $6.95 television sets and 29 cent umbrellas. Watches that were typically $19.95 were $5.22, and pearl necklaces that sold for $39 were $3.

The police intended to only allow 10 shoppers in at a time, but the mob grew impatient, and a flood of people stampeded into the store. In the chaos, dozens of people were injured. A policeman was shoved through a plate-glass door, windows were broken, and customers physically fought each other for goods.

The Washington’s Birthday stampede wasn’t unique to New York in the 1950s. Three years earlier, a price war between competing department stores sent consumers stampeding into stores.

6. COFFEE CROWD CRUSH

An aptly-named “Crazy Day” sale attracted more than 2000 shoppers to a Florida grocery store—which had advertised $75 power lawn mowers for only 99 cents, as well as one-pound packages of coffee for 29 cents—in 1954. The stampeding crowd sent several shoppers to the hospital and frightened store clerks. As the swarm grew, clerks began throwing packages of coffee at the crowd to prevent being attacked, and the police had to be called to restore order.

Wills can be the perfect format for revealing unusual last wishes, because by the time the document is read it’s too late for anyone to interfere. Some people have used their will to send a message from beyond the grave—whether one of thanks, bitterness, or regret—while others have included some unexpected instructions for the fate of certain body parts.

1. THE LEGACY OF BITTERNESS

Michigan millionaire Wellington Burt’s 1919 will became known as “The Legacy of Bitterness,” because he stipulated that his massive fortune couldn’t be paid out until 21 years after the death of his last grandchild. No one knows why the eccentric (and clearly cantankerous) lumber merchant made such a strange bequest, ignoring his close family and the many causes he had supported in life in favor of a fund for future relatives. In 1989 his final surviving grandchild died, and the 21-year countdown began. Lawyers were responsible for sifting through the many applications from relatives to identify those eligible to inherit. Eventually in 2011, the will finally paid out and 12 far-removed relatives benefited from the roughly $110 million fortune.

2. DINNER ON ME

Oscar-winning choreographer and director Bob Fosse left a final request that benefited 66 of his friends and colleagues who had “at one time or another during my life been very kind to me.” Fosse, who died in 1987, left a sum of $25,000 to be split between the 66 beneficiaries (which worked out as $378.79 each), who were instructed “to go out and have dinner on me.” Those urged to go out and eat in his honor included Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Lange, and Liza Minnelli. Fosse’s surviving wife, Gwen Verdon, followed her husband’s wishes and booked the Crystal Room at Tavern on the Green in Central Park, New York, to which she invited all those named in the will as a final celebration.

3. THE OLDEST KNOWN WILL

In 1890 renowned archaeologist Sir Flinders Petrie was excavating a pyramid in Kahun, Egypt, when he uncovered the world’s oldest wills. The fascinating documents were written on papyrus and prove that even ancient Egyptians liked to include some unusual requests in their last wishes. The will of Ankh-ren (also known as Sekhenren, depending on translation) is dated to 1797 BCE and leaves all his goods to his brother, Uah. Uah’s will was also found and it details that all the goods he received from his brother should be left to his wife, Teta—but it then goes on to add the intriguing caveat that Teta must refrain from knocking down any of the inherited houses. These ancient wills re-wrote the history books, indicating that laws of inheritance had developed many hundreds of years earlier than previously thought.

4. A WHOLE LOT OF NOTHING

The 1553 will of Renaissance satirist Rabelais was famously succinct, supposedly consisting of just one memorable line: “I have no available property, I owe a great deal; the rest I give to the poor.”

5. MYSTERY BOX

Antiquarian Francis Douce left a box to the British Museum in his 1834 will, specifying that it couldn’t be opened until January 1, 1900. The bequest was deemed especially unusual because Douce had worked at the museum for a short period of time before resigning, listing multiple reasons why he had to leave, including the “vastness of the business remaining to be done” and “the fiddle faddle requisition of incessant reports.” Douce had amassed an exceptional collection of old books, manuscripts, coins, and artifacts over his lifetime, and the majority of his collection he had bequeathed to the Bodleian Library in Oxford, where it became one of the library’s treasures. Thus the mystery box garnered quite some attention as curators at the British Museum speculated over what might be inside. Despite their impatience, Douce’s wishes were respected and the box remained unopened until 1900, when the trustees gathered round in excitement to finally glimpse the contents. However, the crowd was disappointed—it contained nothing more than some old notebooks and pieces of scrap paper.

A few newspaper reports from the time suggested that Douce had included a note in the box saying he thought the trustees at the museum were philistines and unworthy of receiving anything of any value. If this is true, no sign of the note has survived. Note or no note, the trustees could not help but see the mystery box and its disappointing contents as Douce’s revenge on the museum from beyond the grave. Their hopes of a valuable addition to their collections dashed, the British Museum handed over the contents of the box to the Bodleian in 1930, so that it might join the rest of his (rather more spectacular) collection.

6. A STARRING ROLE

John “Pop” Reed worked for many decades as a stagehand at Philadelphia’s famous Walnut Street Theater. His unusual will revealed that he yearned for the stage. Reed stipulated that after his death his head should be removed from his body and his skull preserved and given to the theater, where it should be used for the skull of Yorick in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Reed’s wishes were duly carried out, and his skull became something of a memento at the theater, where it was autographed by many visiting actors.

This odd bequest is not as unique as it may seem, and many others have left similar instructions, including Polish composer Andre Tchaíkowsky (not to be confused with the rather more famous Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky). Tchaíkowsky died in 1982 and willed his skull to the Royal Shakespeare Company, where it was finally used on stage by David Tennant during his acclaimed 2008 portrayal of Hamlet.

7. CLEARING THE NATIONAL DEBT

In 1928 a kindly British citizen made an anonymous bequest to the nation of £500,000 (roughly $621,407) with the purpose of paying off the national debt. Since then the money has been held in trust as the National Fund and has grown substantially to £350 million (approximately $440 million), making it one of the 30 wealthiest charities in the UK by net assets. Unfortunately, stipulations in the will mean that it cannot be cashed in until it can fully cover the national debt, and as that currently stands at an eye-watering £1.6 trillion, this seems unlikely to ever happen. Barclays bank, which works as a trustee of the fund, has been investigating legal options to see if charitable grants could be made from it, or if the money could be handed directly to the Treasury, but so far no legal settlement has been found and the money remains untouched.

8. CREATING REGRETS

German essayist and poet Heinrich Heine left a very strange clause in his will. Heine had married his mistress in 1841, an uneducated shop worker named Crescence Eugénie Mirat, whom for unknown reasons he called Mathilde. The pair were married for 15 years, and historians have revealed they had a volatile relationship. By the late 1840s Heine had become increasingly ill (possibly with syphilis) and was confined to bed for the last eight years of his life, his wife Mathilde at his side until the end. Heine, aware that he was dying, inserted a curious clause into his will in which he stipulated that Mathilde could only inherit his money if she remarried. This may seem a very strange desire for a loving husband to make, but when questioned by friends as to his reasoning, he quipped, “Because then, at least one man will regret my death.”

9. VALLEY OF A MILLION BULBS

In 2007 a former RAF pilot and Canadian investment banker, Keith Owen, bequeathed his £2.3 million (approximately $2.85 million) fortune to his favorite holiday destination—Sidmouth in Devon, England. Owen stipulated that the capital must remain untouched, but that the sizeable yearly interest (about $150,000) should be used to make Sidmouth and nearby villages of Sidford and Sidbury “beautiful.” As a result, a local civic society, the Sid Valley Association, has been attempting to fulfill Owen’s wishes to create a “valley of a million bulbs” by planting thousands of flower bulbs—in 2014 alone they planted an astonishing 220,000 bulbs, which create a fantastic display of color when they flower each spring.

Smartwatches have their pros and cons. You can browse the Internet with the flick of a wrist, but at the end of the day, their battery life simply isn’t that great. Since most people aren’t crazy about the idea of charging their watch every night, MIT Technology Review reports that a Bay Area tech startup called Matrix Industries has designed the PowerWatch, a smart timepiece that’s powered by body heat.

The fitness-tracking watch runs on “thermoelectric generator technology.” According to CNET, this is a fancy way of saying that the temperature difference between your body and the watch is used to generate an electric current. Then, a transformer boosts the charge to run the smartwatch’s processor. The watch also contains a small backup battery, which helps it run when you’re not wearing it.

The PowerWatch is akin to a Fitbit, in that it counts your calorie intake and steps, and monitors your sleep. But unlike most fitness trackers, the watch actually gets a boost when you exercise. “When you exercise, your skin gets warmer, so you’ll generate more power,” Akram Boukai, the co-founder and CEO of Matrix Industries, told CNNMoney. “It’s kind of motivational.”

The watch is currently available for pre-order on Indiegogo. It costs $129, and is expected to ship in July 2017. Its full retail price after release is expected to be around $170.

[h/t MIT Technology Review]

Tenants of one Miami apartment building have gotten used to finding water in their parking garage, but even they were surprised to see what this month’s super beaver moon dragged in: a small octopus, the Miami Herald reports.

Resident Richard Conlin snapped photos of the small white octopus lying on the wet parking deck and shared them on Facebook.

After the photos were taken, Conlin wrote, building security scooped the octopus into a bucket, walked out to the ocean, and tossed the critter back.

Improbable? Absolutely—but not as improbable as it once was. The apartment building is located right on the beach. Its drains and pipes are connected to the ocean, and unusually high tides can and do wash onto the parking deck’s concrete floors. Sometimes those tides bear passengers.

Biologist Kathleen Sullivan Sealey of the University of Miami says the octopus was likely either a Caribbean reef octopus or an Atlantic pygmy octopus, and that it may have been following a school of fish through the drainage system when it came out the other side. With their soft bodies, octopuses are very skilled at squeezing through small spaces. This talent can make them very hard to contain, but, as we see here, it can also land them in some pretty strange places.

Sealey told the Miami Herald that we can expect more and more marine visitors as sea levels continue to rise. In the last 10 years alone, flooding in Miami Beach has increased by 400 percent. “The sea is moving in,” she said, “so we have to share the space.”

Next week, art lovers with cash to spare will travel to Florida for Art Basel Miami Beach, the international art fair, which runs from December 1 to December 4. Attendees typically splurge on modern and contemporary art, but this year, The New York Times reports, they have the option to purchase a relic of communist East Germany: an enormous stained glass mural created for the Stasi, the infamous secret police of the German Democratic Republic.

Thilo Holzmann, a German art historian, found the free-standing mural among his uncle’s belongings. It had sat forgotten in a shipping crate for years. Hoping that the work’s history will lend it unique value, Holzmann is hosting a pop-up exhibition during Art Basel at an undisclosed location. There, he hopes to sell the mammoth stained glass creation for more than $21 million.

A Stasi stained glass mural that doesn’t even contain a single Stasi reference priced at $21.4 mln. https://t.co/mYz3GJpKhp

— Yuliya Komska (@ykomska) November 22, 2016

Erich Mielke, the longest-serving head of the Stasi, commissioned artist Richard Otfried Wilhelm to create the three-ton, 65-foot-wide mural in 1979. (Wilhelm was the German Democratic Republic’s chief master of glass for public works.) The mural depicts Lenin, two doves, a hammer and sickle symbol, a Communist slogan, and other iconography. The work also contains precious metals, including 55 pounds of gold pigment. Wilhelm titled the work Revolution: Frieden unserem Erdenrund (“Revolution: Peace to the Whole World”).

The mural was completed in 1983, and it furnished a general purpose room in the Ministry of State Security’s compound (today the Stasi Museum). In 1990—one year after the Berlin Wall fell—Holzmann’s uncle bought the work from the Deutsche Reichsbahn, the state railroad company, which was charged with selling the Stasi’s belongings.

There’s no record of how much Holzmann’s uncle paid for the work, but the art historian is hoping that a museum (or a private citizen who wants to donate it to a public institution) is willing to pony up millions. Some experts question whether the work is truly worth $21 million, pointing out that stained glass works were once common in East Germany, and that Holzmann hasn’t fleshed out the specifics of its history. Also, from an artistic standpoint, the quality simply isn’t that great.

If Holzmann does end up landing a multi-million dollar buyer, “you will see a storm of the same kind of art coming on the market, because many of these kinds of stained glass windows are very often in buildings from the ’70s and ’80s that aren’t used anymore,” Sjeng Scheijen, a Soviet art expert and associate researcher at Leiden University, told the Times.

[h/t The New York Times]

Step aside, Black Friday. The Monday after Thanksgiving, dubbed Cyber Monday in 2005, promises some of the best deals of the season. And the best part? You don’t need to change out of your pajamas to score them. Here’s how to make the most of the shopping bonanza.

1. GET A HEAD START.

Cyber Monday may have Monday in its name, but last year, a handful of major retailers kicked off their discounts the Sunday night before, says Courtney Jespersen, retail and shopping expert at NerdWallet. “Sign up for email lists and follow the social media feeds of your favorite stores so you know the precise moment when deals drop,” Jespersen says. “If you show up to the sale too late, you may miss out on some of the best discounts.”

2. SIGN IN.

Just like at the mall, great deals can mean heavy traffic for online retailers. And this can cause inventory to move quickly, Jespersen says. “Last year on the online shopping holiday, Target shoppers had to wait in a virtual line to add deals to their cart,” she says.

Be prepared by making an online account at your favorite retailers before the traffic spikes. That way you don’t have to waste valuable time entering your billing and shipping information at the checkout.

3. APPLY COUPON CODES.

Before clicking “place purchase,” check for any additional promo codes you can add. You can usually find these in banner ads on the site or by using a resource like RetailMeNot. You may also get emailed a special one-time discount code if you sign up for the retailer’s mailing list for the first time, Jespersen says.

4. FOCUS ON CLOTHING AND SHOES.

The deals for these items are traditionally better on Monday than they are on Thanksgiving and on Black Friday, says Benjamin Glaser, features editor with DealNews. Conversely, Glaser notes that Black Friday is the best day to buy a laptop or television.

5. GET TEXT ALERTS FOR DEALS.

If you’re planning on making a big purchase, set up a text or email alert for that item on price-tracking sites, says Sarah Berger, columnist for Bankrate’s money-saving blog The Cashlorette. “That way, you’ll never miss a deal,” she says.

For starters: CamelCamelCamel will email you when the price drops on a product you’ve been watching on Amazon; SlickDeals watches prices on Amazon, Ikea, Buy.com, Newegg, Gamestop, and others; Get Invisible Hand will let you know if the item you covet is less expensive elsewhere; and CheapShark focuses on video game prices.

6. CHECK MESSAGE BOARDS.

Many people will post deals that they’re interested in and that they’ve found to shopping message boards, Berger says. She recommends you check out Fatwallet.com and Slickdeals.net for Cyber Monday intel.

7. USE THE LIVE CHAT FUNCTION.

Andrew Schrage, co-owner of the personal finance site Monday Crashers, says you may be able to convince a customer service representative to cough up a modest coupon code that you can apply to the store’s already-low prices.

8. ABANDON YOUR CART.

A few days before Cyber Monday, put the item you want into your virtual shopping cart—and then abandon the cart (leave without completing the purchase), Schrage says. “A few days later, you might find an email in your inbox with a discount code” to entice you to buy, he says.

Here’s something else to stress about for Thanksgiving: where to put the stress in the word Thanksgiving.

If you’re from California, Iowa, or Delaware, you probably say ThanksGIVing, with the primary stress on the second syllable. If you’re from Georgia, Tennessee, or the Texas panhandle, you probably say THANKSgiving, with the primary stress on the first syllable.

This north-south divide on syllable stress is found for other words like umbrella, guitar, insurance, and pecan. However, those words are borrowed from other languages (Italian, Spanish, French). Sometimes, in the borrowing process, competing stress patterns settle into regional differences. Just as some borrowed words get first syllable stress in the South and second syllable stress in the North, French words like garage and ballet get first syllable stress in the UK and second syllable stress in the U.S.

Thanksgiving, however, is an English word through and through. And if it behaved like a normal English word, it would have stress on the first syllable. Consider other words with the same noun-gerund structure just like it: SEAfaring, BAbysitting, HANDwriting, BULLfighting, BIRDwatching, HOMEcoming, ALMSgiving. The stress is always up front, on the noun. Why, in Thanksgiving alone, would stress shift to the GIVE?

The shift to the ThanksGIVing pronunciation is a bit of a mystery. Linguist John McWhorter has suggested that the loss of the stress on thanks has to do with a change in our concept of the holiday, that we “don’t truly think about Thanksgiving as being about thankfulness anymore.” This kind of thing can happen when a word takes on a new, more abstract sense. When we use outgoing for mail that is literally going out, we are likely to stress the OUT. When we use it as a description of someone’s personality (“She’s so outgoing!”), the stress might show up on the GO. Stress can shift with meaning.

But the stress shift might not be solely connected to the entrenchment of our turkey-eating rituals. The thanksGIVing stress pattern seems to have pre-dated the institution of the American holiday, according to an analysis of the meter of English poems by Mark Liberman at Language Log. ThanksGIVing has been around at least since the 17^th century. However you say it, there is precedent to back you up. And room enough to focus on both the thanks and the giving.

Although Thanksgiving is a North American holiday and a recent invention in the grand scheme of things, the tradition of breaking the wishbone comes from Europe, and is thousands of years older.

A bird’s wishbone is technically known as the furcula. It’s formed by the fusion of two clavicles, and is important to flight because of its elasticity and the tendons that attach to it. Clavicles, fused or not, aren’t unique to birds. You and I have unfused clavicles, also known as collarbones, and wishbones have been found in most branches of the dinosaur family tree.

The custom of snapping these bones in two after dinner came to us from the English, who got it from the Romans, who got it from the Etruscans, an ancient Italian civilization. As far as historians and archaeologists can tell, the Etruscans were really into their chickens, and believed that the birds were oracles and could predict the future. They exploited the chickens’ supposed gifts by turning them into walking ouija boards with a bizarre ritual known as alectryomancy or “rooster divination.” They would draw a circle on the ground and divide it into wedges representing the letters of the Etruscan alphabet (which played a role in the formation of our own). Bits of food were scattered on each wedge and a chicken was placed in the center of the circle. As the bird snacked, scribes would note the sequence of letters that it pecked at, and the local priests would use the resulting messages to divine the future and answer the city’s most pressing questions.

Continue reading “Why Do We Wish on the Turkey’s Wishbone?”

This Thanksgiving, you’ll gather with your friends and family to laugh, reflect, and stuff yourself silly. And for 65 percent of American households, that family includes a member with fur, feathers, or scales. Go ahead and let Fido or Fluffy join in the celebrations (and indulge in some table scraps) on Thursday, but be sure to follow the below safety guidelines outlined by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and ASPCA.

DO: FEED YOUR PET TURKEY.

Unless your dog or cat has an allergy, turkey is perfectly safe—with a few caveats. Keep the pieces small, make sure they are fully cooked, and be sure to remove all bones.

DON’T: SHARE YOUR BREAD DOUGH.

The yeast found in raw bread dough can cause painful gas and bloating in your pets that can quickly turn into a medical emergency.

DO: PREPARE A FEAST OF THEIR OWN.

To keep your dog occupied when the humans sit down to dinner, give him or her a delicious canine-safe treat. Before dinnertime, mix bits of turkey, sweet potato, and pumpkin puree in with your dog’s regular kibble, stuff it into a Kong, and stick it in the freezer. The frozen meal will keep Spot busy for much longer than his usual dinner would.

DON’T: LET THEM EAT CAKE.

Chocolate is a big no-no for dogs, as is an artificial sweetener called xylitol that is often found in sugar-free baked goods.

DO: KEEP THEM ENTERTAINED.

Remember: A tired and distracted dog is a happy dog. The excitement of guests arriving can be overwhelming for some pets. To keep your dog calm, make sure you take him to the park, dog run, or on a long walk in the morning to tucker him out. If all the excitement becomes too much, give your dog some “me time” with plenty of his favorite toys in another room or his crate.

DON’T: LEAVE THE TRASH OUT.

A full house makes for distracted hosts. To make sure your four-legged friend doesn’t stick his or her nose where it doesn’t belong while you’re looking the other way, make sure your trash is covered and properly stored out of reach.

DO: STAY ALERT.

Keep a close eye on your pet to make sure she doesn’t make a dash for the door in the midst of the chaos. (And you should always have the proper identification tags for your pet and get her microchipped just in case she gets out.) Immediate action can also make all the difference if your pet swallows a dangerous food, plant (here’s what’s hazardous for dogs and cats), or foreign substance.