When did we start calling the chicken’s “second joint” the thigh? Illustration by Jack UnruhQ: During my boyhood years, I would spend time at my father’s family farm, near Sardis, in Ellis County. The main meal was at noon and often featured fried chicken, and we kids wound up with drumsticks, wings, or “second joints.” It wasn’t until later that I learned a second joint was also called a “thigh.” I assume the shift was meant to be more decorous, since we also NEVER said “breast” but only “white meat.” Were these circumlocutions widespread? Norman Roe, Cedar ParkA: Euphemisms for poultry parts deemed to be unmentionable in mixed company were indeed once more commonly heard around the dinner table than they are these days—especially throughout the South, where manners, like Bibles and…The post The Texanist: When Did We Start Calling the Chicken’s “Second Joint” the Thigh? appeared first on Texas Monthly.