“To talk turkey” is a well-known English idiom, and it means to talk frankly and bluntly. But where does this idiom come from? Here is a story about the origin of the idiom—“to talk turkey”.
One day, a white man and an Indian went hunting together after aGREeing to share what they would bring back.
As the sun set, they went back with just two birds in their bag. One was a turkey weigh more than 20 pounds. The other was a partridge（鹌鹑）no bigger than 's hand.
The white man had his eyes on the turkey and thought he could trick the Indian into giving up his claim to the big bird.
After a while, the white man got an idea. He would show what a nice guy he was. And the Indian, therefore, would try to be as nice as, and even nicer than he was. And then, he could take away the turkey.
And so, in a GREat show of equality and generosity, the white man said to the Indian: “Now, you can take the turkey if you wish, and I will be glad to take the partridge. Or you can take the partridge, if you want to, and I will take the turkey. ”
However, the Indian was not as stupid as the white man thought. He saw through the white man, and his trick.
“Ah!” said the Indian, “You are always talking turkey to me. Now I do want to talk turkey with you. ”
In this way, “to talk turkey” came to mean to talk frankly, to get down to the basic facts of a matter, or to get down to business.
