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Getting one's ducks in a row

3 replies

TheoriginalLEM · 09/03/2020 06:44

I don't understand why this is used when advising people about getting things sorted, generally before LingTB.

Obviously getting everything organised before a life changing decision is good advice, but what i don't understand is the analogy that suggests lining up one's ducks so they can be shot, a la fairground game?

Or have I got the origins of this phrase completely wrong?

OP posts:
k1233 · 09/03/2020 07:10

It could be because of how a family of ducks move. Watch mummy duck and babies and the babies all follow in a row.

TheMaddHugger · 09/03/2020 07:30

Google has plenty of links

To recap for those who missed my original column, “to have one's ducks in a row” is an idiom meaning to have all one's preparations done or arranged before beginning an activity or project, and the phrase is thought to have arisen by allusion to a mother duck leading her ducklings in an orderly single file.Jul 31, 2007

www.word-detective.com/2007/07/ducks-in-a-row-part-2/

And

ducksinarow.com/ducks-row-come/

yeh. they are heaps of info. just Google it there are plenty more

TheMaddHugger · 09/03/2020 07:35

Get one’s ducks in a row and have one’s ducks in a row
To get one’s ducks in a row means to take care of one’s duties and responsibilities, to organize one’s affairs. Get one’s ducks in a row and have one’s ducks in a row are American idioms, the origin of these phrases is murky. One possible origin is a lawn bowling game that was popular in the 1700s, which involved setting up duck pins, obviously, in a row. Another possible inspiration for the term get one’s ducks in a row is the way in which tin ducks are lined up in a shooting gallery. A third possibility comes from actual ducks and the way in which ducklings line up when following their mothers. At this time, the earliest found reference to ducks in a row, meaning to organize one’s affairs, comes from The Plaindealer in 1889.

grammarist.com/idiom/get-ones-ducks-in-a-row-and-have-ones-ducks-in-a-row/

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