Talking turkey and gobbledygook

This evening I came across an article by Herb Geduld about a supposed origin of the word "Turkey."

In describing King Solomon's fabulous wealth, the Bible (I Kings 10:22 and II Chronicle 9:21) speaks of a ship that Solomon had in Tarshish on the Spanish southern coast which brought "zahav, v'kesef, shenabim, v'kofim, v'TIKKUYIM." — Gold, silver, ivory, apes and peacocks — to his palaces.

...We now take an almost 2,500 year historical leap to 1492 and Columbus' discovery of America. Despite the fanciful speculation to the contrary, most historians now agree that there was only one person of known Jewish birth on Columbus' First Voyage, but he was a very significant one.

Luis de Torres, a Jew baptized shortly before Columbus' fleet sailed, was the interpreter of the expedition. He is described in Columbus' diaries as a man "who had been a Jew and knew Hebrew and Chaldean and a little Arabic," and Columbus brought him along in case he met the "grand Khan."
Luis de Torres did not meet Khan, but among the many wonders he and his exploration parties did discover was a large wild bird with a head and body very similar to the peacock. The male even had a feather display which, while not as spectacular, resembled the peacocks. De Torres, with his background of Biblical Hebrew but poor ornithological knowledge, called this bird a tukki, which over the centuries has been corrupted into our "turkey."
Read full article: http://www.jewishworldreview.com/herb/turkey.php3?printer_friendly

In a State Department Briefing this afternoon, Victoria Noland was posed the following question.

QUESTION: Can I talk Turkey?

Undoubtedly, the journalist wanted to pose a question about the country of Turkey but, after I read the question, the phrase "talking turkey" immediately sprung to my mind.

As most of our esteemed readers know, turkeys don't actually have the power of speech. "To talk turkey" means to speak plainly about a difficult or awkward subject ("Let's talk turkey about your credit history, shall we?").
http://ask.yahoo.com/20061122.html

After perusing the State Department Briefing transcript, I thought that perhaps Ms. Nuland should indeed "talk turkey" and speak plainly about awkward subjects asked of her. As a case in point, when she was asked about events that had transpired in Libya, she indeed did not give plain answers but spoke gobbledygook. Gobble. Gobble.