Ducks and Drakes

Lake a looking glass,
Duck and drake in fine plumage -
Ripples in their wake.

Beautiful sunny morning, the sky was pure blue and was reflecting in the lake .... these two ducks came over hoping for some tasty morsels, but I had to disappoint them .....

I looked up the term "Ducks and Drakes" and apparently it refers to the game of skimming stones over the water. No-one seems to know why it should be called this, but general consensus seems to be that its because of the ripples ducks make with their feet as they "run" across the surface to take off.

Anyway it has also come to mean squandering your money ...

The pastime surely pre-dates written records. The first known reference to it in print is in The nomenclator, or remembrancer of Adrianus Junius, translated by John Higgins in 1585:

"A kind of sport or play with an oister shell or stone throwne into the water, and making circles yer it sinke, etc. It is called a ducke and a drake, and a halfe-penie cake."

Why that name was chosen isn't clear. Most early citations give the phrase as 'make ducks and drakes' rather than 'play ducks and drakes', so it may be that the circular ripples that are formed evoked images of splashing waterfowl; for example, from the play Dick of Devon, circa 1626:

"The poorest ship-boy Might on the Thames make duckes and drakes with pieces Of eight fetchd out of Spayne."

Around the same time, the use of 'ducks and drakes' to refer to idly throwing something away or squandering resources came into use. That usage was recorded in James Cooke's Tu Quoque, 1614:

"This royal Caesar doth regard no cash; Has thrown away as much in ducks and drakes As would have bought some 50,000 capons."


You learn something new every day .......

Yesterday - back blipped