# Lord love a duck? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 20, 2013, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-love-a-duck/647804 "2013-01-20T14:57:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dabroad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@dabroad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dabroad)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2013, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-love-a-duck/647804/1 "2013-01-20T14:57:30Z")
I know it’s a 1966 movie and Michael Quinion writes of the expression’s uses in early 20th-century literature, but so far I’ve been unable to locate any firm hypotheses about the origins of the exclamation, “Lord love a duck!” Any ideas? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2013, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-love-a-duck/647804/2 "2013-01-20T15:02:45Z")
I’ll give the obvious answer, namely, that it rhymes with “fuck”. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2013, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-love-a-duck/647804/3 "2013-01-20T15:20:13Z")
The phrase is used by the carthorse in _The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad_, a 1949 Disney animated picture. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2013, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-love-a-duck/647804/4 "2013-01-20T17:11:39Z")
The origin is cloudy other than the fact it appears to have originated in the UK. Searching around, it looks like the earliest cite is from 1907, though it may be older. And etymologists don’t think that it has anything to do with “fuck,” since its early usages didn’t indicate anything risque about it. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2013, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-love-a-duck/647804/5 "2013-01-20T19:48:14Z")
I wouldn’t be surprised if the choice of a duck over some other animal was nothing more than the phenomenon that a lot of people find ducks inherently funny, in much the same way that Gary Larson seems to think that cows are a punchline, just by existing. We’re left with why somebody would start using “Lord love a \”. “Lord love a bluebird” doesn’t have much of a ring - “Lord love a duck” quacks people up. I shall now go dabble in some other thread. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2013, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-love-a-duck/647804/6 "2013-01-20T19:59:01Z")
Michael Quinion’s take on it at [World Wide Words](http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-lor1.htm). ---
**Author:** ![LilabetTheOther](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/82dd89/32.png) [@LilabetTheOther](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LilabetTheOther)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2013, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-love-a-duck/647804/7 "2013-01-20T20:07:38Z")
Love a duck is a common expression where I grew up, in Derby, UK. So maybe origin in The Midlands? ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2013, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-love-a-duck/647804/8 "2013-01-20T20:15:11Z")
It’s definitely an archaic London working-class expression, I didn’t realise that it was used outside of the UK as you wouldn’t use in the UK as part of normal speech. As it originates from the same place as cockney rhyming slang, I would say that it at least sounds plausible that it originated as a rhyming slang term for ‘fuck’. Cockney rhyming slang originated in the first half of the 19th century which means that the expression plausibly had plenty of time to have lost it’s original offensiveness by the time it first appeared in print. For example the word ‘berk’ is believed to originate as rhyming slang for the word ‘cunt’ (Berkley Hunt) around about 1930s, but, despite the continued offensiveness of the orginal word, it is seen nowadays as only a mild and inoffensive insult (okay for example to broadcast on UK prime time TV by the 1980s). ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2013, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-love-a-duck/647804/9 "2013-01-20T20:52:27Z")
Michael Quinion found a 1907 cite in his article linked in one of the posts above. Google Books search turns up [an earlier one](http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PNMOAAAAIAAJ&q=%22lord+love+a+duck%22&dq=%22lord+love+a+duck%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=l1X8UM6JAoa40QWUtYH4DA&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAg) from 1900 (although according to [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Clark_Russell) the book, A Voyage at Anchor by William Clark Russell, was first published a year earlier in 1899.) Here’s the passage: > [@](#): > > “They’re a’coming down right atop of us, I do believe”, exclaimed Spry, with a note of excitement in his voice. "Lord love a duck, how … That’s where the Google snippet cuts off. Intriguingly Russell is an American author, although of course one can’t read too much into that. It would be interesting to see whether any earlier findings that turn up are American or British. I would have thought this a quintessentially Cockney phrase but you never can tell with these things. ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2013, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-love-a-duck/647804/10 "2013-01-20T21:06:00Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Michael Quinion found a 1907 cite in his article linked in one of the posts above. Google Books search turns up [an earlier one](http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PNMOAAAAIAAJ&q=%22lord+love+a+duck%22&dq=%22lord+love+a+duck%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=l1X8UM6JAoa40QWUtYH4DA&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAg) from 1900 (although according to [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Clark_Russell) the book, A Voyage at Anchor by William Clark Russell, was first published a year earlier in 1899.) Here’s the passage: > > That’s where the Google snippet cuts off. Intriguingly Russell is an American author, although of course one can’t read too much into that. It would be interesting to see whether any earlier findings that turn up are American or British. I would have thought this a quintessentially Cockney phrase but you never can tell with these things. Interesting, though reading the book quickly I notice the character who said that is presumably English as are most of the characters and it seems to take place on the Kent coast. Reading Russell’s biography, he certainly would’ve had a good idea of authentic British slang as his father was English and he himself served in the British Merchant Navy. Interestingly in the same book, the phrase “Lawks, love a daisy!” appears in the same book. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2013, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-love-a-duck/647804/11 "2013-01-20T21:15:02Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Michael Quinion found a 1907 cite in his article linked in one of the posts above. Google Books search turns up [an earlier one](http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PNMOAAAAIAAJ&q=%22lord+love+a+duck%22&dq=%22lord+love+a+duck%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=l1X8UM6JAoa40QWUtYH4DA&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAg) from 1900 (although according to [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Clark_Russell) the book, A Voyage at Anchor by William Clark Russell, was first published a year earlier in 1899.) Here’s the passage: > > That’s where the Google snippet cuts off. Intriguingly Russell is an American author, although of course one can’t read too much into that. It would be interesting to see whether any earlier findings that turn up are American or British. I would have thought this a quintessentially Cockney phrase but you never can tell with these things. Nah. He was born in the US, but his dad was English and he lived and worked his whole life in England. He’s as British as can be. So, it’s a British expression. Good find, **aldi**. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2013, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-love-a-duck/647804/12 "2013-01-20T22:35:58Z")
My uncle used the phrase after returning from WWII, but, never before. I/m guessing he learned it from his English counterparts. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-love-a-duck/647804/13 "2013-01-21T08:57:30Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > Nah. He was born in the US, but his dad was English and he lived and worked his whole life in England. He’s as British as can be. > > So, it’s a British expression. > > Good find, **aldi**. Ah, I wasn’t aware of Russell’s British bent. That makes far more sense. Thank you, **sam**. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-love-a-duck/647804/14 "2013-01-21T10:16:18Z")
> [@Asympotically\_fat](#): > > It’s definitely an archaic London working-class expression, I didn’t realise that it was used outside of the UK as you wouldn’t use in the UK as part of normal speech. > > As it originates from the same place as cockney rhyming slang, I would say that it at least sounds plausible that it originated as a rhyming slang term for ‘fuck’. Cockney rhyming slang originated in the first half of the 19th century which means that the expression plausibly had plenty of time to have lost it’s original offensiveness by the time it first appeared in print. For example the word ‘berk’ is believed to originate as rhyming slang for the word ‘cunt’ (Berkley Hunt) around about 1930s, but, despite the continued offensiveness of the orginal word, it is seen nowadays as only a mild and inoffensive insult (okay for example to broadcast on UK prime time TV by the 1980s). That is not how rhyming slang really works, though (as, indeed, is illustrated by your _Berkley Hunt_, example). It is actually a sort of mnemonic code, where you take the word you want to encode, associate it with a brief common phrase that rhymes with it, and then use the **other** main word of the phrase in place of the original. Thus, if your original word is “stairs”, you associate it with the rhyming phrase “apples and pears”, and then use “apples” whenever you want to refer to _stairs_. You would never refer to them as “pears”. Likewise, your wife becomes your _trouble_ (from “trouble and strife”), your feet become your _plates_ (from “plates of meat”), and so on. I do not know if there is real, traditional rhyming slag for “fuck”, but, if there were, it would work something like this: Fuck —\> muscovy duck —\> muscovy So a cockney lad might say to his girl: “Hey darlin’, ‘ow about a muscovy?” A cockney would not say “duck” to mean fuck, although if “Lord love a duck” was an already established common expression at the time rhyming slang developed, he might say “Hey darlin’ ‘ow about a lord?” ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-love-a-duck/647804/15 "2013-01-21T14:35:02Z")
This possibly originally has nothing to do with the bird. “Duck,” meaning “dear one,” is used in Shakespeare (_Midsummer Night’s Dream_ V.i.276). OED says this is a transferred use, but other sources suggest other derivations: a comparison with Danish _dukke_, “doll,” makes sense to me, and there’s a few other derivations from Old English that make less sense. Apparently the earliest use to refer to a person is recorded from the 1580s. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-love-a-duck/647804/16 "2013-01-21T15:17:45Z")
“My little chickadee.” ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-love-a-duck/647804/17 "2013-01-21T17:33:17Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > This possibly originally has nothing to do with the bird. “Duck,” meaning “dear one,” is used in Shakespeare (_Midsummer Night’s Dream_ V.i.276). I’ll bet its what you call your wife, too. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-love-a-duck/647804/18 "2013-01-21T17:49:29Z")
> [@LilabetTheOther](#): > > Love a duck is a common expression where I grew up, in Derby, UK. So maybe origin in The Midlands? And of course “duck” itself is a common form of friendly address in the East Midlands, which perhaps ties in to **Dr. Drake** ’s point. However, I wonder if sometimes we try too hard to find neat etymological explanations for these things. Maybe “love a duck” became popular simply because someone randomly came up with it as a variation of the common exclamation “Lord love me”, and other people just liked the sound of it. ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-love-a-duck/647804/19 "2013-01-21T18:02:55Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > That is not how rhyming slang really works, though (as, indeed, is illustrated by your _Berkley Hunt_, example). It is actually a sort of mnemonic code, where you take the word you want to encode, associate it with a brief common phrase that rhymes with it, and then use the **other** main word of the phrase in place of the original. Thus, if your original word is “stairs”, you associate it with the rhyming phrase “apples and pears”, and then use “apples” whenever you want to refer to _stairs_. You would never refer to them as “pears”. Likewise, your wife becomes your _trouble_ (from “trouble and strife”), your feet become your _plates_ (from “plates of meat”), and so on. > > I do not know if there is real, traditional rhyming slag for “fuck”, but, if there were, it would work something like this: > Fuck —\> muscovy duck —\> muscovy > So a cockney lad might say to his girl: “Hey darlin’, ‘ow about a muscovy?” > > A cockney would not say “duck” to mean fuck, although if “Lord love a duck” was an already established common expression at the time rhyming slang developed, he might say “Hey darlin’ ‘ow about a lord?” I’m from London, it’s usual to use the whole rhyming phrase, especially when you want to emphasise the meaning original meaning. So for example, you might say “Get in the britneys!”, but you might equally say “Get in the britney spears!” when you wanted to someone to order a round of drinks. Some of the older phrases like “apples and pears” and “trouble and strife” are rarely contracted so that they don’t rhyme with their actual meaning and indeed some of the modern ones too(e.g. people only usually say “It’s all gone horribly pete tong!” as opposed to “It’s all gone horribly pete!”). ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2013, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-love-a-duck/647804/20 "2013-01-22T20:52:53Z")
Of course! Everyone loves me, for example. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-love-a-duck/647804.md?page=2)