h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ponder this

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

this seemingly implies that woodchuck cannot in fact chuck wood.

So why are the called woodchucks?

They may not be able to chuck wood, but don't ever let one get into your clone-o-mat!

All hail the gilded woodchuck
Zwoobing florgle till the dawn!
While electrocuting peanuts
Her eyelashes will live on.

Now this is more like it for conversation necromancy. If only someone had thought about the idea of an online encyclopaedia when this question was asked...

Now the boring answer (and yes I got it from the old opposition) - is that it is a morph from an old Native American name for them - 'wochuk'

However, that page left me pondering more.

So the more common and these days really famous name for a woodchuck is a groundhog.

So they are rodents not hogs.
And as far as I am aware, there are no hogs that live in the forest canopy nor fly....hence there is no need to distinguish from that...

So why are they called groundhogs?

Maybe they make a sound like hogs being ground. (Grinding frozen hogs probably works better)

They're the freakish platypus of animal names.

Did some reading: Groundhog has the same meaning as the Dutch originated Aardvark (earth pig). Alternative names for the groundhog were whistle pig or land beaver.

Groundhog isn't that bad.

The local Amish call it a 'Grundsau'. I don't know whether the one who visits my backyard objects or not, because he won't talk to me.

There is such as thing as a 'Grundsau Lodsch', or 'Lodge'. It's in the Pennsylvania Dutch W*k*p*d**:

http://pdc.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Groossdaadi_Grundsow_Lodge

Pictures of official groundhog and his home in : A87868778