Snopes (www.snopes.com), a repository of urban legend research and debunking, recently ran a piece on the “duck quacks don’t echo” rumor. They basically said, “this is too silly to be true.”
I wrote them a message pointing out that Cecil’s minions had researched this issue (I gave them the column’s URL), and a functionary named “David” wrote back with the following snippy snippet:
‘Sending someone to listen to a duck quack in a courtyard hardly qualifies as “research.”’
Well, it ain’t exactly Nobel Prize material, but it’s a far sight better than pulling an answer out of your ass, which is what Snopes did.
Perhaps this “David” is some hooligan teenager left to look after the keyboards when the real Snopesers were out partying, and only for that reason did I get such a snotty-ass reply.