How Much Can a Woodchuck Chuck if a Woodchuck Could Chuck Wood

"Woodchuck" is a name for a marmot, Marmota monax, also known as a groundhog. The proper name comes from a native American (Algonquian or possibly Narragansett) wuchak.

Wikipedia says the natural language-twister comes from a 1902 song, but the song is really from 1903. It was however a nonsense poesy published in a children's mag in 1902 or earlier.

Wikipedia: "The Woodchuck Vocal" (1902?)

Wikipedia says:

The origin of the phrase is a 1902 song, "The Woodchuck Song", written by Robert Howard Davis for Fay Templeton in musical The Runaways.[ 7 ][ 8 ]

The references are:

7. The Tammany Times - Volumes twenty-21 1902- Page 305 ""How much woods would a woodchuck chuck, If a woodchuck would chuck wood?" That is the beginning of the refrain of a song that Mr. Robert Howard Davis has written for Fay Templeton in "The Runaways." Miss Templeton is trying the vocal ...

8. Hobbies - Volume 78, Bug ane-6 - Page 119 Otto C. Lightner, Pearl Ann Reeder - 1973 "Mathias quotes Davis as saying he made $20,000 from the auction of "The Woodchuck Vocal" (this must have been from sheet music, for royalties were not paid on record sales in those days) after he and Morse called at Fay Templeton's dwelling house .."

I looked up the first 1. The 1902 probably via a Google Books snippet, merely information technology cannot be verified. Here'due south the relevant part from the more reliable HathiTrust:

Scrolling dorsum three pages, we see the this edition (Vol. XXI No. 25) of The Tammany Times was published in October 17th, 1903, not 1902. The book contains many problems, the first of which was 1902, hence the mistake at Wikipedia. The commodity tells us:

The musical product opened for a run of indefinite length virtually the first of last May, bringing the ii hundredth performance at the Casino final Wednesday, ...

And:

"How much woods would a woodchuck chuck, If a woodchuck would chuck wood?"

That is the beginning of the refrain of a vocal that Mr. Robert Howard Davis has written for Fay Templeton in "The Runaways." Miss Templeton is trying the song on Casino audiences the latter half of this week, and is making it one of the pronounced song successes of the season.

This suggests to me the vocal is a fairly new addition to the musical.

It's also mentioned in these Oct 15th and this October 24th, 1903 newspapers, and this from October 24th, 1903:

Fay Templeton has a new vocal in "The Runaways" that has defenseless all Broadway. It was written for her by Robert H. Davis, and the ii lines which are most widely quoted are the post-obit:

"How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood."

Wikipedia's 2nd reference as well says 1903 and not 1902:

In 1903 Robert Hobart Davis and Theodore F. Morse gave nativity to a "classic" which was published under the championship of "The Woodchuck Vocal." It is, however, normally referred to every bit "How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck If a Woodchuck ...

Chronicling America: The Indianapolis Journal (1902)

And so, is in that location annihilation before? The earliest I institute in the Chronicling America newspaper archive is from The Indianapolis Journal, February 09, 1902 (Part two, Page 10, Image 20):

The other day I picked upward a children's magazine and found a nonsense verse which ever since has been making life a burden to me. More than than that, I take repeated the verse to many of my friends, and they, too, have been sent to the borderland of Insanity. This is the verse:

" 'How much wood would a woodchuck chuck
If a woodchuck could chuck wood?
A woodchuck would chuck all the forest he
could chuck
If a woodchuck could chuck wood. "

mccormickphrehing.blogspot.com

Source: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/162685/how-much-wood-would-a-woodchuck-chuck-if-a-woodchuck-could-chuck-wood

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