Second, there's the suggestion that the skin of an addict enduring the pangs of withdrawal resembles that of a plucked but uncooked turkey. (And yes, it is possible these days to buy sliced turkey at the deli counter, thereby obviating the need to roast a bird, but that option came into play long after the first linguistic uses of the term.) However, the "quickly served" aspect of that particular foodstuff applies to any number of other edibles, yet one doesn't speak of going "cold salami" or "cold breakfast cereal," just of going "cold turkey." Also, to get to the point where one has cold turkey to serve, one first has to cook a gobbler, which is a multi-hour process. Cold turkey, says this theory, is a dish that can be quickly served, in that it requires no heating or other preparation, therefore the phrase stands as a metaphor for something done speedily and decisively. To begin with, there's the notion the phrase has a culinary origin. There exist a few theories about how "cold turkey" came to mean the abrupt and complete end to a particular behavior, but the two most common - the ones that have a bit of a story to them - fail the plausibility check. (For instance, someone who gives up smoking "cold turkey" does so by refraining from indulging in so much as one more cigarette, as opposed to tapering off gradually.) Yet for a phrase whose meaning is so widely understood, its origin is anything but. When one talks of going "cold turkey," such announcement is immediately grasped as meaning complete cessation of a particular activity.
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