A Minnesotan who relocated to Wisconsin gets called a mud duck, and wants to know why. Much in the way Wisconsinites get referred to as cheese heads, it’s really a harmless bit of nomenclature from a cross-state rivalry. In hunting, the term “mud duck” has also been known to mean a mixed kind of species. Unfortunately, “mud duck” has popped up in odd corners with negative racial connotations. Still, most people using “mud duck” mean it simply as a friendly jest. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Mud Ducks”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, this is Paul from Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
Hi, Paul. Welcome.
Hi, Paul. Welcome to the program.
How can we help you?
Oh, thank you.
Well, I spent, I’m not a native of Wisconsin. I spent my first 30 years of life living in nearby Minnesota. And then we moved over here. And from time to time when somebody would find out that I wasn’t native to the state and that I came from Minnesota, they’d say, oh, so you’re a mud duck. And I said, I guess, because I’d never heard that and never knew what that meant. And they didn’t really seem to know what that meant either, but they insisted that that’s what I was indeed.
So you’re saying mud duck is two words, like a little bird.
Right. Yeah. That’s kind of what I figured. I don’t know of any actual mud ducks that, or any type of animal that’s called that that would lend itself to this. But I was never sure if I should be offended or impressed or what.
Well, it’s a complicated question, isn’t it?
Yeah.
Did they say, if you’ll pardon me asking, were you being a meanie or a jerk when they called you a mud duck?
No, it was usually they were, you know, standing around talking about the Packers, and I’d just shrug my shoulders and say, I don’t know.
You just mumble, Viking.
Vikings. Yeah, I just kind of explained to them why I wasn’t actually watching the game the day before and didn’t see what happened and didn’t know what they were talking about.
Those are fighting words in Wisconsin. I guess you figured that out. Yeah, so I just kind of kept my mouth shut and said, you know, nodded my head up and down and they said, well, what’s wrong with you? I’m like, well, I’m from Minnesota. I don’t really care that much.
Okay, okay.
Let’s see if we can break this down as simply as possible. There is a term mudduck that is used by Wisconsinites to refer to Minnesotans. And I think almost always it’s met good-naturedly. Almost every state has some kind of derogatory joke or remark or some tradition that their people from the neighboring states are not smart or not nice and so forth. And so they mean it good-naturedly, right? I mean, they’re not saying it as they punch you in the face, right?
Right.
It sounds like more or less a friendly pejorative.
Right, right. Sort of joshing.
Yeah.
There’s an article in the Star Tribune from 2005 that we’ll link to on the website that kind of lays this out pretty plainly. There have been throughout American history, a lot of times, a lot of different kind of ducks that have been called mud ducks. It’s just a common name for different mixes of species or different kind of animals that are bland and boring and brown. And so it’s not a common term, but you’ll find hunters who are duck hunters. They’ll talk about mud ducks, and sometimes it just means a duck that they can see in the distance but can’t recognize, right? They just can’t make out the species.
So we’ve got these two different meanings of mud duck, which are generally well-intentioned. But then there’s the one or two that aren’t well-intentioned. And I’m not going to propagate them further by talking about them much on the air, but there is an unseemly racial component to mud duck, which suggests that there is something unnatural about people from two different races dating or marrying or having a romantic relationship. And I’m pretty sure that none of the people that you’re talking to or using the term mudduck mean that because it’s used by the crassest and crudest of people that you can find on the Internet. And those are not Wisconsinites.
Yeah, right.
No, these were generally friends of mine at church that were…
There we go. Exactly.
And mudduck has come up occasionally in court cases as kind of evidence of some kind of racial dispute or racial bias. And I just have to say that in your personal encounters, if you hear mud duck, just assume that they have the best of intentions.
Yeah, it’s kind of an unfortunate coincidence.
Yeah, that’s the nature of slang. One word, many definitions.
Yeah.
Is there a definitive resource for finding out, you know, a list of, you know, the things that we call them and kind of this friendly, good-natured sort of thing? Because I knew all the words, you know, coming from Minnesota. I knew what we called the people from Wisconsin. I knew what, you know, there was the cheeseheads in Wisconsin, the Iowegans in Iowa.
Yeah.
And, you know, I came here and didn’t know what the terms were until I heard them and went, oh, okay.
That’s a good question.
There may be a definitive resource. If we find it, we will send it along and post it to the website, okay?
All right.
Super.
Thank you so much for calling, Paul.
Thanks, Paul.
Yep, thanks a lot.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
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