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By the time you read this column, Thanksgiving will have already come and gone, but some of you may still be in that sleepy I-ate-too-much post-holiday haze. I’m sure I’ll be looking at creative things to do with leftovers at that point, and taking plenty of walks to work off any extra dessert I might indulge in.

But if you’re still in a Thanksgiving mood and still have food on your mind, I just recently read an interesting article from Merriam-Webster which is all about “Talking Turkey” (and other foods) during the holiday. So if you’re at the point where you’ve run out of conversation topics with visiting family members, consider sharing some trivia about these food-related words and phrases:

Gravy train – “a situation providing abnormal or excessive profits, advantages, or benefits for those occupying it usually at the expense of some larger group”

“Gravy” has been in use since the 14th century, beginning simply as the word to describe the food itself. But, like many words over time, it picked up metaphorical meanings along the way too. Like “unexpected and pleasing results” and “improper profits or graft.” And it was those meanings that gave way to the phrase “gravy train.”

Although, I suppose you can also have a literal train of gravy offerings at your dinner table if you’re really ambitious about sauces. (Personally, I’m not a fan of the stuff.)

Turducken – “a boneless chicken stuffed into a boneless duck stuffed into a boneless turkey”

While I’ve heard the word “turducken” (which is a combo name of the three birds involved) before, I didn’t know people actually ate them. I thought it was a joke! It seems like an excessive number of birds, right?? Just pick one!

But apparently this is a thing some people do, and the technical term for it is “engastration” (which sounds unpleasant, in my opinion). Another example is a “gooducken” in which you’ve swapped the turkey out for goose.

People have been doing this for ages because there are records of a French recipe all the way back in the early 1800s that consisted of 17 birds, all stuffed together. Perhaps that’s a feast better saved for the 12 days of Christmas…

Potato-sick – “(of land) exhausted by successive crops of potatoes”

Though I grew up on a farm, I’m not too familiar with the ins and outs of potato farming specifically. But apparently this is an agriculture term used when the land can’t sustain potato crops anymore after so many growing seasons beforehand. I assume they should consider crop rotation to fix that!

But we can probably borrow the term to also describe whenever we’ve eaten too many helpings of mashed potatoes or French fries or whatever other potato-dish you’ve included in your Thanksgiving meal.

Easy as pie – “very easy”

This is a pretty common phrase we throw around a lot to describe something that should be simple to achieve. (Like writing a column every week should be “easy as pie” after all these years, right?) (It’s not!)

But is pie really that easy to make? Perhaps for seasoned bakers with plenty of experience. But I know if I tried to make a pie, it would be anything BUT easy. Cooking is more my forte, and even that is a struggle sometimes.

Merriam-Webster suggests that perhaps the “easy” part refers to how easy it is to EAT pie. And you know what, I’ll agree with that! It is way too easy to say “maybe one more slice wouldn’t hurt.”

The “easy as pie” phrase dates back to at least the 1870s, but the dictionary notes that more people have started saying “easy as falling off a log” instead. But that sounds a lot more unpleasant than pie.

Surfeit – “disgust of sicken by excess”

Actually, there were two other similar definitions as well, but this one seemed the most understandable. Basically, this is the word you’d use to describe how it feels to eat too much (such as how you feel after a big Thanksgiving meal…)

Other than “surfeit,” Merriam-Webster pointed out that there are plenty of other words in the English language which also can be used to describe eating too much. Those include “ingurgitate” (to overload by eating or drinking), “gormandize” (to eat gluttonously or ravenously), “stodge” (to stuff full especially with food), and “crapulent” (suffering from excessive eating or drinking).

All of these are fun to say, but not fun to experience! Perhaps try to use them only for beating opponents in Scrabble and not to describe yourself after going back for thirds during the next holiday meal.

And lastly, cold turkey – “abrupt complete cessation without medication of the use of drugs by a drug addict”

While that’s the most widely used definition, “cold turkey” is a phrase that can be used for describing anything that you quit suddenly and completely.

According to Merriam-Webster, no one is quite sure of the origins of this phrase. The drug-quitting version has been in use since the early 1900s. And some have claimed that the phrase was developed to describe “the cold, clammy feel of the skin during withdrawal, like a turkey that has been refrigerated.”

But people did actually use the phrase in other situations before that. The dictionary speculates that the term may have been a combination of “cold” (in the sense of meaning “straightforward and matter-of-fact”) and “talk turkey” (which meant in the 1800s to just speak plainly).

But no one knows for sure, leaving this as an English language mystery.

Perhaps you and your family or friends can speculate about the origins of the phrase too.

Or, maybe, just stick to watching football.

Holly Taylor is a Staff Writer for Roanoke-Chowan Publications. Contact her at holly.taylor@r-cnews.com or 252-332-7206.