A ducksnort in softball or baseball will never make the highlight reel. It’s often a blooper of a hit that lands between the infield and the far outfield, but still gets the job done. Paul Dickson, author of the authoritative Dickson Baseball Dictionary, explains the original version of the term: duckfart. White Sox announcer Hawk Harrelson is credited with popularizing the more family-friendly version. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Ducksnort”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, my name is Sarah, and I’m calling from Watertown, Wisconsin.
Hey, Sarah, welcome to the show. What’s going on?
Yeah, I just have a question. I have a word that I grew up and it was super familiar to me, but now I moved to Wisconsin and nobody seems to know it.
Okay. Oh, good. What is it?
It is a duck snort.
A duck snort.
A duck snort. All right. Where does this come up? Is this a nickname for you?
No. I grew up playing softball in the Chicagoland area, and a duck snort was always known to be a ball that was hit between the infielder and an outfielder. So it’s a base hit, but it’s not necessarily a hit that you’re proud of, but it got you on base. So it’s like, hey, nice duck snort.
Perfect. That is exactly what it is. I mean, not that I doubt you at all. I just want to say that. That’s what I was going to say.
You beat me to it. It’s a bloop. It’s a bloop single, right? It falls between infield and outfield, and everybody’s got to scramble to get it, right? Move away from their positions a little bit. And it’s bound to get you on base.
And supposedly, originally, this was called the duck fart because the sound of the bat hitting that particular ball that would land in that particular way supposedly made a sound that sounded like a flatulent duck. Not that I’ve ever heard one, but…
And it’s supposedly… I’m getting a lot of this from Dixon’s Baseball Dictionary. Paul Dixon’s got the definitive work on baseball language. It’s a big volume. And he credits the term duck fart to Chicago White Sox announcer Ken Harrelson and then says it was later turned into duck snort because people didn’t want to say the word fart on the air, which I’m doing now repeatedly.
Yeah, I guess that’s a little more appropriate.
Yeah. But it’s also a bloop, right? Do you use the term bloop or bloop single?
Yeah, a little blooper. Do you ever call it like a dying quail or dying swan?
No, I’ve never heard that one.
Yeah, so these are all kind of variations in the same thing. There’s a little bit of nuance around the edges, but dying quail, dying seagull, dying swan. We’re not killing birds here, but that is what they sometimes call it in baseball because it just looks like it was going up and then it just kind of drops like a little weight.
I like duck snort. It sounds just soft and, yeah. I don’t know. Do ducks snort? I guess it sounds like that.
Yeah, I was just surprised because in Chicago, you know, my dad and my coaches and everybody always used it. And even, like, baseball enthusiasts up here in Wisconsin, they’re like, what are you talking about?
Well, you’re one up on them because you got the lingo, Sarah. You’re all set.
Okay. I guess so. Yeah, teach them a thing or two. Clearly, they need to catch up.
Yeah. But if you do want an amazing work about baseball and softball, of course, borrows a lot of its language from baseball, it’s the Dixon’s Baseball Dictionary. It’s really fantastic.
Yeah, it’s great.
Yeah, I’ll have to look into that.
Check it out. Cool. Thanks for calling. I really appreciate it.
Thanks for calling.
Yeah, thank you. Take care now. Bye.
Bye, Sarah.
Bye. Give us a call about language. We’d love to talk to you about sports or your hobbies and what you say to get the point across. 877-929-9673. Email words@waywordradio.org.
