Close to Home by John McPherson for October 04, 2024

Now we’ll have an answer according to MIT

ChatGPT: In the word “woodchuck,” what does “chuck” mean?

In the word “woodchuck,” “chuck” is thought to come from the Native American word for the animal, which is a groundhog or whistle-pig. The term itself doesn’t have a specific standalone meaning in English, but it’s often associated with the act of throwing or tossing something. However, in the context of “woodchuck,” it refers specifically to the animal rather than conveying a particular action. The phrase “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck…” plays on the name rather than its literal meaning.

That thing is pretty amazing sometimes!

The important thing isn’t how much he could chuck, but rather how much he would chuck.

“A woodchuck would chuck all the wood he could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.”

From Wikipedia: A 1957 Associated Press piece refers to the question as “a riddle which beats the Sphinx, since it’s still unanswered”. A more concrete answer was published by the Associated Press in 1988, which reported that a New York fish and wildlife technician named Richard Thomas had calculated the volume of dirt in a typical 25–30-foot (7.6–9.1 m) long woodchuck burrow and had determined that if the woodchuck had moved an equivalent volume of wood, it could move “about 700 pounds (320 kg) on a good day, with the wind at his back”. Another study, which considered “chuck” to be the opposite of upchucking, determined that a woodchuck could ingest 362 cm3 (22 cu in) of wood per day.

The real question is would a wood chuck, chuck wood. Here’s a report from national news reporter… yup, you guessed it… Chuck Wood

Was that with or without “Skinner Box” assists?

Buck chucked wood like a Woodchuck could when Woodchuck Buck chucked wood!

Buck’s in the lead at 2.3, so thank you MIT!

(I don’t see Bleeb, but it appears that Dalcon is about to get bonked by some wood that Buck chucked!)

This could be MIT’s entry in the next Ig Nobel Awards competition.

The people at MIT are very smart. They are very smart. I asked them a question and they said it was a very smart question. No one had ever asked that question before. They said it was the smartest question they had ever heard and no one ever asked that question before. They said that it was one of the smartest questions they ever heard.

How much wood? Together Everyone Achieves More. ‘Chuck’ Norris

Hey, you dang woodchucks, quit chucking my wood! (bonus points if you get it)

to put it on top of the pile would it have to upchuck?

It’s only a cartoon folks! But, I have some Wookchucks you can come get for free, please!

I’m pretty sure this same joke was in a Far Side years ago, although I’m not going to try to track it down now. Something like a question people were answering on an exam.

Yes, I know, it’s hard to be original, and people come up with the same jokes independently anyway.

Watch out Bleeb! Incoming!