The Etymology of Quack
Jun. 8th, 2009 05:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nozenfordaddyThere is a lot of mystery surrounding the etymology of the word 'quack' in current usage - well, 'my' usage. And not so much with the mystery.
It all began, as these things often do with a few people sitting around a table playing cards. Less commonly it was noon, the card game was cribbage, and no one had imbibed anything stronger than soda from the cache supplied by the office.
The moment of creation went something like this (names changed for no good reason):
*cards dealt, crib filled, turn up flipped*
Mark: F&%$
Meg: *gasps* Marcus!
Mark: What? I said Duck.
Harry: Quack.
Heather: *laughs*
It was soon found that this new word was fairly unique in its linguistic versatility, in that it could be used as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, or pronoun, and could quite logically be used as virtually any word in a sentence.
Quack can be used as an interjection, and its participle quacking is sometimes used as a strong emphatic. The verb to quack may be used transitively or intransitively, and it appears in compounds, including quack off, quack up, and quack with. In a phrase such as don't give a quack, the word is used to denote something having little value. In what the quack, it serves merely as an intensive.
A personal favorite is motherquacker.
It all began, as these things often do with a few people sitting around a table playing cards. Less commonly it was noon, the card game was cribbage, and no one had imbibed anything stronger than soda from the cache supplied by the office.
The moment of creation went something like this (names changed for no good reason):
*cards dealt, crib filled, turn up flipped*
Mark: F&%$
Meg: *gasps* Marcus!
Mark: What? I said Duck.
Harry: Quack.
Heather: *laughs*
It was soon found that this new word was fairly unique in its linguistic versatility, in that it could be used as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, or pronoun, and could quite logically be used as virtually any word in a sentence.
Quack can be used as an interjection, and its participle quacking is sometimes used as a strong emphatic. The verb to quack may be used transitively or intransitively, and it appears in compounds, including quack off, quack up, and quack with. In a phrase such as don't give a quack, the word is used to denote something having little value. In what the quack, it serves merely as an intensive.
A personal favorite is motherquacker.
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