Listeners who grew up playing the children’s game Duck Duck Gray Duck insist that this Minnesota version of Duck Duck Goose is more complicated and therefore more fun. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Duck Duck Gray Duck”
In an earlier episode, we talked about the game Duck, Duck, Goose and how in Minnesota they play Duck, Duck, Gray Duck.
And we got a great email from Elizabeth Conley from Minnesota. She says that the advantage of playing Duck, Duck, Gray Duck over Duck, Duck, Goose is the opportunity afforded to tease and misdirect your opponent.
To play Duck, Duck, Gray Duck properly, the child who is It circles around behind a ring of seated children while touching each on the head and pronouncing him or her to be a different colored duck, such as blue duck, orange duck, etc. She says the color designation is critical to the subtlety of the game, which is manifested when It decides to dub someone Green Duck, but draws out the grrrr sound for as long as possible, thus tantalizing the seated child with the possibility that he or she might really be the Gray Duck.
This causes intense excitement, accompanied by squeals of anticipation from the other contenders. What more needs to be said?
And Elizabeth concludes, clearly those of us born in Minnesota have been among the fortunate few to have had such spine-tingling excitement in our early lives.
I can see that totally working. 100%. That’s a lot of Minnesota pride there, right?
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