Dear Answer Girl,
How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
-Chuck WoodsHa ha, wise guy. Or girl.
I bet you thought I wouldn’t answer it. Well, here it is – a final and concrete response to this somewhat nonsensical question.
But first, a thorough analysis of the hidden questions associated with this seemingly innocent folk verse.
First, what exactly is a woodchuck? Why, it’s a North American small marmot (a hibernating groundhog), of course. The most common variety (Marmota monax) has coarse fur that is red and brown, in case you wanted to do some woodchuck watching from the comfort of your home/apartment/dorm room.
Second, can woodchucks chuck wood at all? Well, the answer to this one isn’t really important, since the age-old question actually assumes that the woodchuck cannot, in fact, chuck wood.
I’m referring to the use of the word “if” in the question. If a woodchuck were able to chuck wood, the question would be more like, “How much wood DOES a woodchuck chuck WHEN a woodchuck DOES chuck wood?”
Since that isn’t the question, we must infer that a woodchuck cannot chuck wood, but as I mentioned a moment ago, the question is hypothetical, thus it does not require the animal to actually have wood chucking abilities.
Incidentally, however, it does seem exceedingly strange that an animal named woodchuck is not able to chuck wood. It is like a firefighter that won’t, or shin guards that don’t.
So, for that simple reason, I will henceforth cease to perpetuate the misnomer and will, instead, refer to the hibernating groundhog/marmot as Marmota monax.)
Third, what do we mean by chuck? The obvious meaning here is, of course, a specific grade of ground beef (as in ground beef, ground round, ground chuck, ground sirloin). But since the word “chuck” appears to be acting as a verb in the question, we’ll have to move to the much more obscure verb meaning, which is “to toss” or “to cast aside.”
Fourth, how much wood could a Marmota monax toss if he had the physical ability and the motivation to do so?
Interesting you should ask. A researcher in New York actually compiled some data on a Marmota monax chucking dirt to build a burrow and theorized that if it could chuck the same amount of wood, weight-wise, that it could dirt, then the answer is simply 700 pounds.
This data is obviously skewed, though. For instance, does a Marmota monax just stop chucking forever more after he or she digs one burrow? I hardly think so. I know that my pet Marmota monax digs burrows all the time in the Pedestrian Mall.
So that would mean that the real answer, assuming the other data was correct, would be the number of lifetime burrows multiplied by 700 pounds.
But then, is the question asking for the lifetime wood chucking ability of a Marmota monax or just in one sitting? Also, how do we know that all Marmota monaxes can chuck the same amount of dirt? We don’t.
All of this brings us to the final, conclusive answer. Actually, all you really needed to bring you to the final, conclusive answer was to keep singing the little rhyme.
Come on, you remember the next verse, don’t you?
Well, if not, I’ll give it to you (with only a small alteration): “As much wood as a Marmota monax could if a Marmota monax could chuck wood.”
In short, however the heck much he took a notion to.
Hey, Marmota monaxes have feelings, too, you know. They aren’t just little wood-chucking robots.

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