If I grab a villager and chuck 'em up at the berry bush because I'm low on food and don't want to wait for them to walk back does that slow down their learning foraging because they don't walk back?

If I grab a guy with berries or detrius from the beach where does that stuff go? Are the berries taken from the bush when they're put on the food table or when he walks away from the bush? Are those berries lost or do they go back to the bush?

My villages always start out with someone who has some construction skill, do they ever start with farming or research or am I wasting my time starting over and over and over trying for a more immediately useful skill? Or am I doing it wrong and I really NEED that construction skill right away?

Moving a villager to the berry bush to speed up their foraging efforts in no way 'stunts' their development as farmers. I use that method all the time to build the food supply more quickly.

I've always avoided interrupting a villager who is carrying something, since I don't want to risk losing their cargo. Only Arthur and Walt know for sure at which point(s) the food is subtracted from the bush or farm, but the food bin supply is increased at the time the villager deposits the contents of their basket!

At the beginning of the game, the only villager with any skill is your builder, presumably from working on those 'fixer-upper dwellings' left by the former inhabitants of the island. You have to train everyone else!

Your theory would probably work (I've tested a similar strategy elsewhere), but you're that it might not be an ideal strategy - especially if your villagers are starving!