I first heard the word "spatchcock" at a Thanksgiving celebration some four or five years ago. The turkey, I was told, had been "spatchcocked." To be absolutely honest, I thought someone was pulling my leg. To my pure and undefiled ears, the word "spatchcock" sounded more than a little obscene. Certainly not something that a civilized person would do to a turkey. Or even to a fellow human being. I admit that I was puzzled: what sort of perverse activity is implied by "spatchcock." And just who would be the spatchcocker and who the spatchcockee?
But further investigation revealed that "spatchcock" is not a dirty joke nor even a slangy neologism. The word has an eighteenth-century origin and it's not sexual but culinary: "to cut poultry along the spine and spread the halves apart for more even cooking when grilled." Moreover, the word "spatchcock," believe it or not, has a sibling of its own: "spitchcock": "to split an eel along the back and then broil it." So spatchcock and spitchcock, yet as far as I know, no "spotchcock" or "sputchcock"– but why not? Lots of other land and sea beasts out there to de-spine and roast over an open fire. Spatchcocking, the process, probably dates back to the neolithic, after the taming of fire and long before anyone thought to call it by such a silly name.
Etymology? Though there are theories, I'm going to stick with "origin unknown." The common answer is that the word is "shorthand for 'dispatching the cock.'" An undocumented, out-of-left-field guess, in my opinion. If I were to propose a theory, I would say that the "cock" must be a version of "cook." I'm not prepared to venture a guess about the spatch. A mystery, unrecoverable. Perhaps a humorous coinage?
I'd hypothesize that "cock" might be related to the second part of common surnames such as Hancock, Adcock, Babcock, Hitchcock or Wilcox. Some say that the cock in these names is a hypocoristic suffix "applied to a young lad who strutted proudly like a cock." I'm skeptical. More credible, once again, is "cook." Hancock is Johan the cook, Adcock is Adam the cook, Hitchcock is Richard (Rich, Hich) the cook, and so on.
The ever-unpredictable Urban Dictionary provides another meaning for "spatchcock": "when you intentionally rub your backpack on a nearby stranger's genitals in an effort to sexually arouse them." What can I say? Only that I've lived a long life and have never given a single thought to the erotic potential of the backpack. Nor have I ever been spatchcocked either in the traditional culinary nor the speculative contemporary sexual sense of the word (thanks be to all the gods in the pantheon!)
Other words of my life:
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