Duck, Duck, Gray Duck Game

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, guys. This is Brian Russell from Peoria, Illinois.

Hi, Brian. How are you doing?

Just fine, Grant. How are you guys?

Okay, great. That’s just a stone’s throw from where I was raised in Missouri.

Yeah, yeah. We get down to the St. Louis area every once in a while, but not much farther in Missouri than that.

Brian, what’s on your mind?

I’ve got questions about kid games, actually.

I found out from a co-worker of mine several years ago that, according to him and according to everything I’ve been able to find out since, the game Duck, Duck, Goose that I know it is called Duck, Duck, Gray Duck in Minnesota, but Minnesota only.

I was born in Minnesota, and we were talking about where we were from.

And he asked if I had called it Duck, Duck, Gray Duck.

I moved to Texas when I was a kid, and so I called it Duck, Duck, Goose.

But most of my family is from Minnesota.

When I asked around, they all confirmed that, well, yes, it’s Duck, Duck, Gray Duck.

You know, that seems odd to me, and I wanted to know where the name came from and how it got trapped in Minnesota.

It’s for young kids, right?

And you are sitting in a circle, and one kid runs around, taps the other kids on the head and says, Duck, duck, duck, and then when they tap somebody and say goose, then that person has to chase them around the circle, right?

Exactly, and that’s pretty much how I would describe it to people I was asking.

So I was trying not to buy his answers or anything.

Yeah, it is an odd one because Minnesota seems to be the main place where you play Duck, Duck, Gray Duck.

There are a couple of other variations around the country, like Duck, Duck, Drake.

But we talked about this about five years ago on the show.

Somebody from Minnesota, I believe, called us to say, you know, I use this expression with other people and they don’t know what I’m talking about.

Yeah, so the deepest heart of Duck, Duck, Gray Duck is Minnesota, but it spreads outward from there to the surrounding states.

So you’ll find pockets in Iowa and Illinois and the Dakotas and Wisconsin, even in Michigan.

Yeah.

And why that is, I don’t know.

We really don’t know.

But if you go to Duluth, man, if you go to Duluth, that’s what they say.

Duck, duck, gray duck.

That’s it.

It’s crazy how very site-specific this term is.

Yeah.

So maybe we need people.

I didn’t know whether it was the north or south of the state thing.

Most of my family is from the Twin Cities area.

You know, so it goes as far north as Duluth.

I have a theory, and it’s a useless theory with no information to back it up.

But hey, here it is in a way.

Goose is mildly pejorative.

And maybe there was a curriculum in Minnesota, you know, a workbook for kids or a book that was published locally or an article in the newspaper or a particular educator who decided just to change it because they didn’t want to be calling kids geese.

Well, gray duck is just different, right?

From regular duck.

You got a white duck, a white duck, and a gray duck.

I would think that could be…

Oh, so you think white ducks.

I don’t.

I think mallards.

Well, yeah, I was…

That’s what’s difficult for me about this.

Interesting.

I don’t think of a duck that’s all that different from the other ducks.

If I say gray duck, a goose is a different animal, very clearly different.

Or maybe with all that snow, you see the gray duck more clearly.

I don’t know.

We’re overthinking this.

Yeah, we may be overthinking this in our theories.

But yeah, Minnesota, hey, you guys got something cool going on.

Love it.

What is going on with you people in Minnesota?

Well, maybe they can call us and explain why they say it.

And then they’ll all talk about bubbler, but let’s not talk about that right now.

Or booyah.

But cool. Thanks for calling, dude.

Yeah, thank you for the input.

All right. Take care now.

Great day.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Well, Brian was right in that we do love talking about childhood games and all the variations thereof.

Right. And we have some scientific reasons for that, academic reasons, because these are where the patterns are laid down.

Yes.

That we still hold to when we add new words as adults.

Indeed.

So call us, 877-929-9673, or send your questions about language in email to words@waywordradio.org.