Duck, Duck, Gray Duck: Minnesota’s Regional Version of Duck, Duck, Goose

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Mary Ann from Wrightstown, Wisconsin.

What’s going on in Wrightstown?

Well, I have a question for you about Duck, Duck, Goose, the game that you play when you’re a little kid.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell us how you play that.

Well, you sit in a circle with a bunch of kids, and one person is it, and they go around, and they hit people on the head as they go around and they say, duck, duck, duck. And then when they get to someone that they pick, they say, goose. And that person, they run around the outside of the circle and the person has to get to where that other person was sitting before they get them.

Right, hours of fun.

Hours, yes, very much so. But that’s for when you’re very young, just kindergarten or even preschool, right?

Kindergarten, first grade, right.

Right.

Yep.

And I have a niece and a nephew who live in St. Paul, Minnesota, and they’re in preschool. And they came home from preschool and said they played duck, duck, gray duck. And my brother and I and my brother’s wife, we’ve never heard of duck, duck, gray duck. We always played duck, duck, goose. So we’re wondering why in that part of Minnesota they say duck, duck, gray duck.

Okay. Is that how you and your husband met, playing duck, duck, goose?

No. I haven’t played Duck, Duck, Goose in a very long time.

Wow. Great. I’ve never heard that one. In this case, Minnesota, though, is, let’s call it, it has a Texas characteristic about it in this particular case. And by that, I mean Texas is so often the exception to various rules and things, or at least it thinks it is. In this case, Minnesota is the exception because as far as I know, this is the only place in the country where they play duck, duck, gray duck. And it’s fairly well known.

The Dictionary of American Regional English has an entry where they comment on it. The dictionary’s editors have talked about it in news articles. It comes up now and again when the Minnesotans are doing what I call chamber of commerce pieces in the newspapers. And these are where they talk kind of with pride about the things that make the Minnesotans, the words that they use or behaviors that they have or their particular perverse pride in the fact that they know how to navigate eight feet of snow without a shovel, you know. And they play duck, duck, gray duck.

And they play duck, duck, gray duck. And do they say why they play duck, duck, gray duck or when that started or it’s just that’s what they do?

I do know that it goes back to at least the 1940s. So it’s nothing recent. So there are generations of Minnesotan kids that grew up playing Duck, Duck, Gray Duck and don’t think twice about it until they run into Duck, Duck, Goose people and go, what? You guys are doing it wrong. And that’s how I felt when I heard it. I’m like, what? Duck, Duck, Gray Duck? Who plays that?

They do. Yeah, the Minnesotans, they actually have this weird thing where they kind of look outward at their other 49 states and go, oh, no, you all, you guys are doing it wrong. We’re doing it right. But they are, and it’s not even the entire state. I’m not sure exactly where it’s centered. It might be more to the south of the state, so I’m not 100% sure.

Okay, yeah, and they’re in St. Paul. You know, if I were playing this in St. Paul, I think I’d go inside and warm up with gray goose. Just a thought.

Yeah, they’re a little chilly there. Well, Marianne, thanks for an interesting question. I bet we warm up.

Thank you for answering it for me.

All right.

All right, take care of yourself. Stay warm.

Yes, you too.

All right, bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

I was going to say, they’re warm people. She meant that they have cold weather.

Right?

They do. Grant, it’s so much fun exploring all these children’s games. You know, one of my favorite ones that I came across only in the dictionary was one called Honeypot. Do you know that one?

You don’t know that one?

No. If you look it up in the OED, it says a children’s game. One of the players, called the Honeypot, sits with his hands locked under his hams while the quote-unquote honey merchants lift him by the armpits as handles, pretend to carry him to market, and shake him with the aim of making him let go his hold. Isn’t that great?

I mean, you want to get rid of TV and Game Boys? That’s what we’re going to be stuck with, honeypot. We’d love to hear about your childhood games, old rhymes, and stuff that you half remember from when you were very, very young. Give us a call, 1-877-929-WORD, or send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.