It’s a noun. It’s a verb. It’s … duck!
No, don’t duck. It’s the word “duck”.
According to wikipedia, “duck” is an inherently funny word in almost any language. Whoever wrote that portion of the articlue surmises that it is because a duck looks funny when compared to other birds. Jaq doubts this, otherwise owls would be funny. Jaq believes it has more to do with the quack. Ducks “quack” in many different languages, which is kinda unusual, because not all animals talk the same in other latitudes. One horrible example is the pig, who in Russian says, “Hryyou, hryyou”. Oink? Nuh-uh. The duck is remarkably polyglotic.
To properly quack, you have to wrinkle up your nose and make that ‘a’ sound really nasal, keeping your upper lip really stiff. The next time you’re feelin’ down, quack like a duck out loud as best you can, until you feel too silly to remain depressed. It works!
The word “duck” is even more amusing when combined in situations where you don’t really expect a duck. Some forms of obvious dissonance produces mental discomfort, the only relief to which is to laugh at it. The “Mighty Ducks” is a funny name, because one doesn’t normally associate “mighty” things with all things ducky. The statement, “go fuck a duck“, for another example, puts two very different kinds of images into your head at the same time. It’s better because it rhymes, but “go screw a duck” works just about as well to produce a strong yet spikily humorous insult that shouldn’t be taken too seriously by the recipient.
Ducks are funny in the news, too. The 2006 Chicago ban on foie gras would probably not have garnered as much attention if it were a ban on, say, beef liver. Subversive black-market duck liver bootleggers? Yes, says NPR, who would not be reporting if it were any one of the zillions of other things in which people bootleg random crap that doesn’t involve funny words. (Louis Vuitton replicas smuggled from China, anyone?)
While Jaq was parked for 30 minutes on GA 400 today (literally parked, at one point Jaq got out and took a walk in the 179° heat along the fast lane) Jaq heard NPR quote one Chicago Alderman, Joe Moore, who sponsored the foie gras ban. “Everyone keeps saying that the city is a laughingstock. I don’t hear anybody laughing.”
Jaq believes Joe might not be listening too hard. Go fuck a duck, Joe.
